


Gone

by Orlha



Series: Rocks in the stormy seas, the end of a thousand years [1]
Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of Shouryu, Yoko struggle to pick up the pieces. He was a friend, a co-ruler, a lover; a relationship that no one could really understand. Perhaps there was more to his death than Yoko and Rokuta had led on. [SEQUEL of Burning Skies, Burning Hope]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before you beginning reading, it'd be better to understand that these characters are most likely not in-character as you read them in the novel or watched them in the anime. They are perceived the way I felt they would be with the passing of time and as such, most characters however lovable they would be may or may not be still alive. I shall duly note that none of the original ministers in En are alive in this story as Taiki or Risai. Taking into notice that many kingdoms do not live pass 80ish and 100ish, I have likewise placed this consideration into the story.

**Prologue**

It had been many long years for Yoko. To be honest, the first hundred breezed by. There were so many things that she needed to do: corrupted ministers to weed out, cities to rebuild, plans to draw out for different situations, rebellions to subdue and the list goes on. It was not only when she had hit a hundred and fifty before people stopped pining for Tatsu, a unique saying to the people of Kei often used to describe when the longing for the enlightened rule of a long-lived king. Her workload had too by then eased up. Her ministers were people she had placed there with trust and there had been few remnants from the short-lived rule of Yo-ou, her predecessor. Though there were a few times where a minister she had trusted went astray. She was always heart-broken to see such however few they were. It was times like that where she would retreat to the inner palace for many days and only Shoryu was permitted to enter; not even Keiki was allowed. People change he would say as he cradled her.

Kei shared a unique alliance with En due to the strange relationship between Yoko and Shoryu. Even though they were two separate countries, both Yoko and Shoryu seemed to co-rule En and Kei. They were unwavering in their path of the Way and made many solid decisions that the ministers found they had nothing to fault with. Their relationship was like the sun and moon. Without the sun, the moon would not shine; without the moon, the sun would not know how glaring it could be. Where Shoryu lacked in severity and sterness, Yoko made up for it and where Yoko was overly serious, Shoryu lightened her. However all that changed somewhere during her 400th year reign. The two countries that everyone thought were like rocks in a stormy sea changed.

Everything changed when Shoryu, Naotaka Komatsu, King of En or the Eternal King as they call him now disappeared with nothing but an apology letter to Rokuta and just like that the end of the 900 year rule of Shoryu was over. Things did not change overnight for the country En. The ministers who ruled the country were just. The kingdom had not been laid to waste by a king with a demon in his heart. There were no pieces to pick up for the interim rule, only the empty throne was a piercing reminder of what they had lost. When asked to search for a new king, Enki simply gave Nyosen a strange look. He vanished shortly after that and a new ranka was found on the Shashinboku – En's. Enki or rather Rokuta had merely said after Shoryu's death that he should have realized it much sooner and as Yoko did, he too blamed himself for Shoryu's death. They all felt the burden of time acutely as the ministers that had passed them by.

For Kei things were different. Yoko announced a change in the era name to Kukoshou; Black Esteem, they all silently breathed a sigh of relief and allowed it despite being such an ominous name. The name, they noted contained the Eternal King's name. A tribute to Eternal King it was, for the passing of a King that ruled nearly a thousand years was nothing but astounding. They worried about its effect on Yoko and despite their foreboding feelings, Yoko went on ruling the kingdom as she always had. However Yoko began to withdraw into herself, eventually she withdrew so much into herself that Suzu could even count the number of words she spoke a day. They passed it off with Shoryu's passing, knowing of Yoko's intimate relationship with Shoryu.

Then one day, someone realized that they could not remember when they had last seen Yoko. Yoko with her frequent trips down the mountain had been a routine. During her four hundred years of rule she had acquired a habit of reading the rumours and a nose for suspicious activities as she walked within the country. It held the ministers and provincial lords in check. They could never tell when she could disappear and where she would surface. So many of them either held their breaths or tucked their tails and resigned. However no matter how long she disappeared, there had always been at least one within her inner circle who knew exactly where she was and/or what she was up to. This time no one, not even Keiki knew.

This is where the story begins.

* * *

**Kukoshou Year Seventy**

"Yoko!" Shoukei yelled after her angrily. She pulled her shoe off and threw it at Yoko's retreating back. Nothing she said would change Yoko's decision. She gnashed her teeth as she hopped over to pick her shoe up.

"Shoukei." She looked up at the shadow that fell over her. Kantai had landed his mount in the middle of the busy street without a care for the pedestrians. Above the rumble of thunder and patter of rain echoed her thoughts.

"Where is her majesty? What did she say? Is she coming back?" He scanned the street fervently for Yoko but she had disappeared yet again. She was becoming extremely adept at hiding herself, even from Keiki and his sirei. Shoukei held her hand up at his flood of questions. She had been searching for Yoko for so long right to the city of Goto before she finally found Yoko waiting for her. Yoko knew the sirei had found her and had guessed that the person they would send after her would be Shoukei or Suzu after Keiki had come back empty-handed. Excluding her very somber way of dealing with everything, Shoukei liked Yoko. Yoko was very earnest in everything; she never did things on a whim or say things without meaning it. Yoko was full of drive to finish everything perfectly that sometimes Shoukei had to pull her down. However that Yoko she had just spoken to was not even a shadow of what she had been.

"She is –" Shoukei struggled for the words to describe Yoko now. She looked up and shrugged, "gone."

"Gone-? That doesn't explain anything!" Kantai said, his voice rising in level. He could not care less for the strange looks the pedestrians were giving him.

She sighed as she grabbed his hand to climb aboard. "Conversely, it explains everything. She is gone: not here, lost, hopeless, departed, passed away."

"Passed away!" Kantai exclaimed in shock at Shoukei's words. "How could-" he shook his head as though trying to erase a bad image. "What conversation could that have been for you to say that?" He asked despite not wanting to know the answer.

"I asked her what she was doing here and why had she not returned. It was as though there was nothing left in her. She did not remember how she got there or why, only that she had to stay. She wasn't even interested in the matters of affair or En. She looked like she had not eaten or drank for awhile and she was similarly disinterested in them. Her sword had not been cleaned for awhile though thankfully, she obviously had been taking baths. She didn't want to talk about Eternal King and when I said to return even just for while, she wouldn't hear the end of it." Shoukei sighed. "She simply said the kingdom could go to hell."

Kantai listened to this in silence as they circled around searching for Yoko's unmistakable presence in the pouring rain. His heart sinking as he took in the gravity of her words. He finally understood why the only word Shoukei could have used was  _gone_.

_What an ominous word._

"There!" Shoukei pointed at the red headed figure on the cliff. She rubbed her eyes perplexed. "Is that-?" Shoukei had seen that figure many times in court to recognize it on sight.

"En King?" Kantai said, his eyes narrowing to slits as they neared.

"That can't be-" She gasped, clutching tightly onto Kantai as they dove towards Yoko.

"Your majesty!" Kantai strove to place himself between his queen and the person who could only be dead. Slipping off, Shoukei pulled Yoko away from the figure as they looked on. The figure was indeed the Eternal King although it could hardly begin to describe him. Pale and almost see-through, neither Shoukei nor Kantai had seen anything like it.

"What are you?" Kantai demanded; his voice cutting through the pouring rain and growling thunder as clear as day. The figure merely pointed towards the void sea and they turned to look. Around them the storm brewed. The wind howled angrily that even Kantai had difficulty keeping his Kitsuryou aground. Turned back, he frowned saying, "that doesn't explain –"

"Yoko!" The ground beneath Yoko had crumbled. Shoukei clung desperately onto Yoko's arm but like had been she was previously, Yoko was utterly disinterested in Shoukei's effort to save her. "Please Yoko! Grab onto my arm!" Shoukei pleaded.

Yoko smiled a little as though suddenly realizing Shoukei was there. "I have to go," she whispered, wrestling Shoukei's hands off.

"Kantai!" Shoukei screamed somewhat hysterically. Kantai struggled to fly beneath Yoko to grab her, but the winds refused to permit him to go near or even land. They wailed and shrieked, even ripping him off his mount. He grasped frantically onto the saddle. If he had anything to say, it was that the storm hardly seemed normal. Then when he saw Yoko fly from Shoukei's hands and towards the curling abyss of winds, he made a mad drive towards her.

"Your majesty!" he hollered and for the first time in his life he prayed very hard that he would be able to reach Yoko. He smashed into Yoko, he could taste the blood in his mouth. Grabbing her waist tightly, they spun together into the abyss of wind. He could see Shoukei's forlorn figure on the cliff and her flying skirts as she watched them with anxious eyes. The winds were too hard for her to even stand. In a corner of his eye, he could see his mount struggle towards him but not reaching anywhere. It screeched in exasperation.

_This must be a shoku._

Those were his last thoughts.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The sky above them was dark. The moon that shone in the darkness was nowhere in sight, only the dark maroon clouds that hung heavily across the sky. The rain poured down from the sky as though someone had tipped a bucket. It hammered down around them, merging and forming into grey slates as they drove themselves down. There was no thunder, no lightning, only the howl of the whiny cold wind as it tugged on their clothes. This was what Kantai woke up to.

The weight of his sodden clothes pressed him down as he struggled to rise and look around. Though the sky was dark and gloomy, he could see well with his human eyes. There were strange lights overhead and lit the path brightly. Five men stood at a distance watching them slack-jawed. Their trip to sink a man into the sea had been interrupted by two people falling from the sky. One of them looked up, squinting into the sky while the others watched the two figures nervously.

It was the man who had looked up into the sky who broke the stunned silence that befell upon them. "Hurry you morons, sink him. I'll deal with this," he said though he could barely find enough bravo to follow through his words. Kantai's dark grey eyes narrowed as he approached them. Casting a look at Yoko who lay limply in his arms unconscious, he carefully laid her down and stood to a defensive stance. He noted the strange object in the advancing man and remembered vaguely of Yoko describing the weapons of her world to him.

"Hey you!" The man called out, carelessly waving the gun around. He eyed the unsheathed blade in Kantai's hand. He had seen many amateurs wave it around, but this man certainly seemed to know his way around the blade. He paused, his mind calculating the possibilities as he glanced up to the sky again. Pocketing the gun, he raised his arms with hands wide open to show that he meant no harm. He stood there waiting for Kantai to accept his peace offering, the armour looked feudal and so did the lady's cloths. Regardless, he decided he would go through with the quickly forming plan in his mind.

Kantai watched the man as he stood there with arms wide open. Finally deciding that the man was of no threat, he slowly sheathed the sword. He reached over to Yoko and shook her slightly. She was breathing but her malnourishment was taking a toll on her even if she was an immortal.

He spoke quietly to the shadow, hoping against hope that at least one shirei had managed to follow her without her notice, "Is there any shirei? Anyone?" There was no such luck.

"Is she okay?" the man had come forward to check and placed a finger under her nose. "Least she's still breathing," he shrugged and glanced back to the other four men. He patted on Kantai's back and laughed as Kantai stiffened upon noticing him. "Don't worry, don't worry! We won't harm you guys. I'm Naoki by the way. I've got a good eye. You look like a good fighter. Why don't you come back with us? That is if you got nowhere else to be to."

He got up without waiting an answer and walked back to the men by then there was only three left. "Done?" he asked. The men pointed at a spot in the harbor.

Kantai watched Naoki. There were not many choices for him. He could stay out here in the rain and wait for Yoko to wake up but considering she was burning up it didn't seem like a good idea. Unsure of the world and the cultures, he wasn't keen on wandering around. Moreover the world made him feel odd. It was like looking through a cloudy glass, the air felt thin around him as though the very essence of him was being squeezed out. He hoisted Yoko onto his back and made his way to the strange metal object where Naoki entering the strange metal object, he gently set Yoko beside him. Inside was warm but stifling. The scenery of this foreign place flashed by. The buildings seemed to spiral into the sky and though it was a dark and stormy night, the streets were brightly lit. It almost seemed like there was no difference between night and day.

_So this is the fabled Hourai—_

"She looks terrible if you don't mind me saying," Naoki said. He gave them the once-over and dryly added, "I don't suppose she's got meds."

Seeing Kantai giving him a quizzical look, Naoki sighed and ruffled through his pockets before procuring a small black box that was the size of his middle finger. A strange blue light zoomed out of it and he tapped on the light impatiently. "Eh, Misaki, I need you over at the branch house," he spoke to the blue screen. "No, Taka is fine." He nodded with a bored look. He spoke to the blue screen at length before pressing a small panel on the black box whereby the blue screen immediately disappeared and he pocketed it yet again. The strange metal vehicle shuddered to a stop and the door slid open.

"Oh good, she's here already," he said, noting the strange white metal vehicle parked beside the door. Kantai clambered out almost glad that they had arrived. Naoki waved the umbrellas away as two other men scurried out to shelter him. "No point, I'm already wet. It's raining cats and dogs out there." He pointed at one of them and jerked a finger at Kantai and Yoko. "Get them some clean clothes and ready the bath.

"A-aniki? Who are they?" one of them stammered.

Naoki pulled the man up close and stare at him. "Does it matter?" he spat.

"N-No!" he replied quickly and scrambled to ready the things he asked for.

The blond haired lady called Misaki was waiting impatiently as they entered the house. Kantai was startled for a moment at the colour of her hair almost wondering what the holy kirin was doing in the house that seemed to reek of blood. It wasn't much later before he realized that blond was a pretty common hair colour for the people of Hourai. She shooed the men out of the room so she could change Yoko's soaking wet clothes, however Kantai refused. He was not going to leave his queen alone here so he complied by turning around; his hand gripping his sword firmly, wary of any malicious intent towards Yoko. To be honest, he had a vague feeling that if he left Yoko's side too far he might even vanish. It was not that he feared of vanishing, he feared leaving Yoko here allow to the mercy of these people. The lady gave Yoko some suspicious looking white button-sized things though she assured him that it was entirely safe. Kantai reached over for Yoko's sword. It was grimy as Shoukei had said it was. He rubbed the cake of mud off the hilt and grunted unhappily as he remembered its former glory. The former Yoko would have never let Suiguto fall into such a state. Former that is, he could hardly bear to think this girl that was so frail and vacant was the fiery queen he once served.

The door slammed open and Naoki strode in, dumping a bunch of clothes onto his lap. "Change. You're wetting the tatami."

Kantai looked up but before he could refuse Naoki had waved it away. He knelt down to Kantai and so quietly that even Misaki could barely pick up he said, "Don't worry she'll be fine." He sank down beside Yoko and nodded knowingly to Kantai who reluctantly left Yoko. The man called Naoki reminded him vaguely of the En King: unpredictable and somewhat reckless yet a strange feeling of being able to trust. Were all  _Hourai_  people like this? Both Enki, Eternal King and her majesty were people of such bearing.

* * *

"Yoko! Kantai!" she screamed as they faded from sight. As the shoku seemed to close, a streak of white and black fled towards the abyss. The white was flung back, but the black had disappeared along with the abyss. She squinted, making out the horn and the silvery blond mane. The winds had begun to die down. She ran towards the quivering kirin. His flanks were heaving from his exertion, his head dipped down, eyes barely opened. "Kei Taiho!" She ripped her cloak off and wrapped it around him. It was a size too small for him, but it would be better than nothing to keep him warm. He looked up towards the now calm void sea. Their thoughts echoed the thoughts of the ministers and all those who knew she had disappeared.

_Perhaps this is the end of Sekishi's rule._

Even now, as Keiki watched the dark clouds drift away, he could not help feel the foreboding feeling close around him.

"Kei-Ou will be fine. She's in good hands. Kantai is with her," she chuckled. "Kantai would drag her back even if she were to scream and kick." She looked sadly at the lonesome moon. "She had changed so much since the last time I saw her, despite it being only eight months ago—"

She sighed a little. "What shall we do?"

Behind Koshou had landed along with a small but trusted platoon. He scanned the scene before him. Kantai's kitsuryou had returned after furtively searching for its master. A heavy silence had descended upon them. Kantai was gone and so was Yoko. There was not much he could say that would make a difference.

He coughed a little, trying to ease the silence up. "Taiho. The whole city is in an uproar. The Kirin is here, they're saying. The army's here. Now they're worried. Haven't seen a kirin running about since Gokusei year ninety-two. Not to mention there's a bundle of them just waiting to see," he pointed at the little group that had been gathering at the edges of the town. Just close enough to see Koshou's group.

"Then there is no choice," Keiki said flatly. "We'll stay provincial lord's castle for the night. Koshou. Fetch Suzu. We mustn't waste anymore time." He turned and spiralling into the sky towards the provincial lord's castle.

Koshou scratched his head. "Lord Yukei isn't going to be happy."

Shoukei gave a wry smile as she leapt onto Kantai's Kitsuryou. "You know, he might. The holy kirin. Staying at his place? What greater honor that must be."

Koshou leapt into the sky with a small chuckle. "You know that wasn't what I meant."

She patted the Kitsuryou to calm its confusion. She knew exactly what Koshou meant. Lord Yukei would have probably preferred notice in advance. The Goto castle must be in disarray now. Her head was whirling with worries. How long more would it be before Heaven would decide Yoko was abandoning her throne, would Keiki be overcome with shitsudou, would the youma come, how would the people on the outskirts survive, would Yoko be able to come back, would she want to come back. So many questions but none had an answer that she could answer confidently. Back in the Kinpa Palace, she knew Koukan was fretting. She pursed her lips at the thought of Koukan's displeasure when she would arrive empty-handed. She shook her head with a sigh. Right now, she could only prepare provisions for Keiki's trip. Since only taika or kaikyaku could travel to hourai, it was obvious that only Keiki and Suzu could go to search for them.

She wheeled the Kitsuryou around, landing to a small alley. The narrow inconspicuous alley's main income was from selling bits of kaikyaku things. Shoes, clothes and even bits of tiny black boxes no bigger than the size of a grown man's finger. A boy roughly sixteen sat there in the shadows of the alley as though waiting for something. He stood as Shoukei approached.

"Shoukei aren't you?" his voice had a tinge of arrogance as he spoke though his speech was rough. She eyed him suspiciously. His odd speech patterns were a clear indicator that he was a kaikyaku that had recently learnt to speak their language. "Don't matter," he continued accepting as though Shoukei had responded. He pulled out a letter and held it out to her. "Yoko said that a woman with bluish hair and an air of a princess would come here. I said there's got to be a gazillion women out there that matches this des. She said I'd know when I see her. Unmistakable." He shrugged.

She took the letter on it had only two things: the word "Find" and her royal seal. She frowned. Was this a warning or a royal order, there was not many things she could deduce from it. She gazed at the boy wondering if the boy was part of the puzzle.

"You must bring me along," he defiantly returning her gaze without so much as a flinch. "Said you my trip home. Good riddance too. I asked what if she don't come and Yoko said she will come. Like the sun will set and the moon will rise—"

"You mean the sun will rise," she asked.

"No. She said sun will set and moon will rise. She not me. Also said cause this is starting point. Will come," He grinned mischievously now. "Name's Youhei."

Shoukei grunted. With great lack of enthusiasm she accepted him and brought him back to the castle.

"Shoukei. What is the meaning of this?" Keiki asked sharply, his gaze falling over the grimy boy that tottered behind her. Shoukei cringed at Keiki's piercing stare, quietly pulling the letter that Yoko had written. Then she or rather the boy retold the story of how he met Yoko and what she had told him.

"Honest! She pulled me off the street and said, Youhei. There is something you have to do for me. I said I don't know you man. How the hell you know me. And she said this is of crucial importance. There is an alley two streets from here. You must stay there and give this letter to a girl with blue hair and air of a princess." He looked pointedly at the letter in Keiki's hand. "Said I have to follow of your instructions and I'll get my trip home."

Shoukei sighed. Why was Yoko being so difficult? Couldn't she have simply stated what she wanted them to do? The word "Find" and the royal seal.  _Suppose she had simply placed the royal seal there to confirm the boy's identity?_  She wondered. A curl of suspicion began to coil in her. If she had wanted them to escape, then why had she picked this particular kanji? This kanji was very vague.

(Note: since their language is supposedly reminiscent of Chinese, Chinese languages have different words that can mean the same thing and different words that can sound the same. And since it is a Japanese novel, I decided to go with the word Kanji to describe it.)

Suddenly she got up, pulling the letter closer, she exclaimed, "I got it!"

The two started a bit. "What did you get?" Keiki asked.

"It means many things. For starters, she needs you to find your faith in her." Shoukei smiled a little. It was a letter that could mean many things and only the people who were in the inner circle could probably get it. She had it delivered to Shoukei which mean of all the people, she had expected Shoukei to understand it the fastest. Kantai or Sekki might have gotten it faster but Kantai was not here and Yoko knew Sekki was too important to be out chasing her.

"I have to go and  _find_ as well," she chuckled, tucking the letter into her inner pockets. "Kei Taiho, you'll have no choice but to bring this boy with you. Her majesty had commanded you to." She bowed as she left with her parting words, carefully avoiding Keiki's scowl.

* * *

At first Kantai had opposed to the strange instrument in Naoki's hand. It made a loud sound and blew hot air. Eventually he resigned himself to it and found he enjoyed it quite a bit. Yoko lay sleeping on the other side of the room. She no longer burned as she had but still had not woken up. For good or for bad, he had detected a shirei. However it seemed that it struggled just to be there, it was unable to neither manifest itself nor speak to Kantai. Moreover Naoki had taken a liking to them; he spent many of his waking hours with Kantai. If he were not there, then he would leave some underling behind, although Kantai had the suspicion that rather than leaving to take care of them, they were under constant surveillance.

Kantai didn't speak much to anyone. Rather than not wanting to, he found it difficult to speak to them. There were times that they could not hear him. Breathing in this world alone was growing difficult for Kantai. He stayed faithfully by Yoko because of his duty to protect her and as well the fact that being near her helped to alleviate the world sickness as he called it. Unsure of where the harbour was, he was not keen to foolishly grab Yoko and flee this house that has steadily felt a prison. The people in this house were kind in a gruff way but there was no shortage of people watching them. He had read their maps and sought out the harbour where they had arrived at. For the time that had taken them to arrive to this house, the harbour was mighty far. It was a distance travelable by foot even with Yoko on his back, but what would he do once he reached there. Being a man of the military, Kantai was not one who went on half-baked plans. As a result he resigned himself to waiting for the Calvary. Keiki would no doubt be able to find Yoko, assuming he was not delayed, that is. Regardless, Kantai as a man of patience, so he stayed and waited without moving, hoping to be like a stick in the water – unmoving, unchanging and easy to find.

The door to the open walkway was open. The half moon spun in the clear twilight sky. He missed the view back at the Kinpa Palace. Here, the skies brightened by the city's ever shining lights scared the stars away. He sighed a deep sigh and turned to look at Yoko. He recalled that night the Hou-ou cried out that the Eternal king had died.

* * *

He strode stealthily into the gardens. Her majesty had particularly liked this garden. It was her secret hiding spot that was not such a secret within the inner circle. There was not a whole lot to see in this garden, the gazebos were in ruins and the patches of grass had bits of broken rocks of what seems to be remnants of pillars. The flowers grew wildly and freely here, untouched by the gardeners. With the faint scent of flowers and grass and the smell of salt in the air, this place was could have described his majesty in precise words.  _Perhaps that is what I should tell her majesty_ , Kantai thought as he spotted her bright red hair.

She sat there on the grass, watching the clouds roll across the shimmering lights. Her body curled up as though trying to hide herself away.

"I wonder what would happen if I fell off the ledge." Her voice was thick from unshed tears. The taishi had once told her that the king was not supposed to show any signs of weakness, Kantai thought it could have been the cruellest thing to say no matter how much sense it made. She turned to look at him, her emerald green eyes filled with pain.

He sat down beside her and looked down at the sea of clouds. "I suppose you'd still be alive, but barely breathing. Unfortunately, I doubt falls ever killed sages. Not to mention it'd hurt a lot."

She sighed and rested her chin in her hands. He glanced at her before lying down on the grass. He had so many things that he wanted to say to comfort her, but now that he was beside her, he found himself at a lost. All he could do was wait for her to be ready to talk.

"He sent me a Seicho a week ago," she finally said. He got up in surprised. A month ago Shouryu and Enki had gone missing and though their disappearances were common, the ministers filled with unease sent out officials looking for them. Then just an hour ago, the Hakuchi cried out and died.

She continued as though unaware of Kantai's abrupt reaction, her voice trembled and fell to barely a whisper as she spoke, "He said he couldn't fight it anymore."


	3. Chapter 3

She turned her face away but not before Kantai could see the lone tear sliding down her cheeks. "He was tired. What could I have said to make it better?"

She cupped her head between her hands, her body shook with silent sobs. Kantai pulled her to him and hugged her. There were no words that could have healed her broken heart, only time. It was after sometime she pulled away and wiped the tears away. The grief that had been so stark on her face just moments ago was all hidden away. Concealed behind a cool mask of confidence, only a trace of it could be seen in her eyes. She placed a hand on his shoulder as she got up.

"A king can't show any sign of weakness," she responded to the confusion on Kantai's face.

She smiled a little as she turned to leave. "Thank you."

Those shoulders that carried the burden of the kingdom never seemed any smaller and frailer than they did before.

* * *

"She is someone very important to you." Naoki's voice broke through his thoughts. He had forgotten that Naoki was there.

Chuckling just a little, Kantai gazed at her face as he said, "She is." He smiled ruefully at Naoki. "Like a light in the darkness. A fire on a cold winter's night."

"I once had someone that important as well." Naoki sighed, his eyes taking on a glazed look as someone remembering a memory. "She was, to me, the most beautiful thing. We grew up together, went to school together. Then on the way to our high school graduation ceremony, she slipped through an alley to get to school on time and she was gone." He looked down on his cracked hands. "Funny thing was that, I was right behind. I turned round the corner and she was gone. She had disappeared. None of the students on the other side had seen anyone exit. No one believed me. It's not like I would have either should someone have told me this story."

Kantai had heard stories like that from the Kaikyaku ministers: gone through a hallway, when through a cave, a door, a hole, a tunnel. Yoko sympathized their plight, but as a king she could not command Keiki to open the shoku whenever she liked. The shoku would cause much destruction to the surroundings lands. So once every several years, when no ranka resided on the Shashinboku – the special tree on Mount Hou – she would send out a notice for any kaikyaku who wished to return to be at a certain spot. That being said, there were many kaikyaku who decided to stay in their world.

Naoki continued his story, his eyes taking on a hard distant look.

"My friend, that girl. She reappeared a few years ago. Look at me, I'm 38. But she looked like she hadn't aged a day, wearing clothes like your girl. I called her out and all she could say was  _I'm back? Why are you so old?_  People called me crazy. No one believed me." He sighed and laughed that sounded forced. Kantai could hear the bitterness in his voice.

"Tell me truthfully Kantai. There is another world out there, isn't there?"

He stared at Kantai, his eyes begging Kantai to agree. Kantai swallowed loudly. To agree was to allow Naoki find a way to escape his present world. While he did come from another world, it felt to Kantai that Naoki was merely looking for a way out.

"Nao. Stop it," came the voice behind the door. The door slid open, revealing a man with spiky milk tea hair. Kantai had occasionally seen him around the house and when their eyes made contact, the man would merely give a cursory nod.

Naoki spun around and came face to face the man. His voice faltering as he spoke, "Taka—"

"Amaya ran away from home. She didn't disappear. No one disappeared. Nao, stop turning from the truth." Taka spoke, his voice had a cold edge to it.

Naoki stood up angrily; with fists clenched, he strode out of the room. Taka turned to Kantai. "I apologize for my elder brother's behaviour. He was a brilliant man, controlled the gumi with his amazing leadership. However a few years ago, he said he saw his dead girlfriend. He transferred himself to this minor branch so he could use the information network in here to find her."

Taka paused, taking in Kantai's cool disinterested look. "They say you two fell from the sky." He leaned forward, his voice barely a whisper. "I don't care if it's true. I trust you will not fuel his delusions and keep this to yourself." He eyes slid to Yoko's sleeping form. No words were needed to decipher what Taka was suggesting.

Kantai could feel the rush of anger on the back of his neck. No one threatened him or his queen. In spite of this, to flare out from Taka's obvious provocation was probably just what Taka wanted.

"Don't worry, I'm not even interested," he spat out.

"Good." With that Taka left with a satisfied look on his face.

* * *

"There must be something!" Shoukei remarked as they riffled through file after file. Although Yoko had dutifully filed away everything neatly and orderly, they were not quite sure what they were looking for. Her neat office was now a scene of a battlefield. Stacks of files and papers had been pulled out to inspect.

"It almost seems like the Eternal King is giving us those strange vague orders," Sekki commented.

"Her majesty has always been rather straight forward with her orders," Koukan added. They had been cooped in Yoko's office for days without much lead. They could not hold off the other ministers for much longer.

Sekki gazed at the miniature thorn apple plant that Yoko kept in her office. Idly saying, but not really meaning it, he asked. "Hey. Find could also refer to plant. You think she meant the tree? When do you think she decided to keep a plant in her office?"

They exchanged looks. "Kukoshou year one. Shortly after she came out of her seclusion."

Sekki tipped the large pot. The tiny red thorn apple flowers scattered on the floor. Shifting his hands through the soil, he searched for something in the soil. That was when Shoukei spotted something interesting in Yoko's desk. It was stuck in-between the wood grains, so much so that only someone searching for something would have found it.

"I think it's this." Shoukei said, turning to Sekki and Koukan. Sekki had found something as well. Shoukei had found a list of names while Sekki had found a bunch of letters wrapped in what Yoko called it plastic. He peeled the plastic off. No one was sure of what to expect from this. To Shoukei, all she wanted was closure. For Koukan, he wanted explanations, but for Sekki he was simply waiting for new orders. Closure and explanations seems closely linked but in fact they were not that similar. A closure would not require a conducive reply to Yoko's odd behaviour, an explanation would require such. Unfolding the first of the letters, Koukan began to read, translating the letters with his halting Japanese.

" _It is not me who wants this, it is my heart that does. I hear the will. We hear the will. These are rocks in stormy waters, but rocks as such will erode over time. To sink, to die, to move on. That is the will of life. One cannot live forever._

_Shouryu"_

"Was this what Yoko had mentioned to Kantai?" Koukan asked.

" _I hear them too. When I lay in my bed, they whisper. They plead with me. Rokuta doesn't know what ails me. I fear I might break the promise with Rokuta."_

"All these letters are from the Eternal king to her majesty." Koukan looked up from the small stack of letters.

" _Your letter brings me much comfort and fear. I have worried for the Kingdom of En much. I will hold you to your promise that you made that day. The sun will surely set one day, but the moon rise if only it finds itself. There is treachery in my courts and yours. To seek them out is the way, to leave them be is to die. The battle is uphill. I will seek Kouya. He will know how to find and kill it. I pray you will be safe. There is nowhere safe. We cannot hide from it._

_Shouryu"_

"This is—" Koukan paused, his eyebrows crumpling into a knot across his forehead as he peruse the letter.

"If there is treachery in the courts of Kei, then this list of names would fit perfect," Shoukei whispered. She turned to Sekki who had remained on the floor. "What does the Daishikou think?"

He takes a look at the list of names and after a long pause, he said, "I think we should pursue this with an open mind. This may be a list of names in suspicion for treachery, but this may not be either. There may be an easy way of finding out." He points at Saibou's name.

 


	4. Chapter 4

"En-Ou, Enki," she nodded as they entered her study. She had placed her efforts into assisting the fallen En. There were not many things she needed to help. Shouryu had planned for every eventuality including his death. The storehouses were full and the chousai knew exactly which plan to carry out in what kind of situation. She called the new Enki,  _Enki_  reluctantly and referred to him as Shinki when he was not around. The new En-Ou, Koushita, did not have Shouryu's brilliance and neither did Shinki. Koushita was his third king; his first had gone crazy after a mere four years, prompting the ministers to kill him before he wiped out the whole population. His second was a queen who abdicated shortly after beginning her rule. Sometimes she secretly called him Yaguruki which meant disaster kirin. Koushita thankfully, despite not having Shouryu's brilliance was hobbling along though the kingdom had not prospered as greatly as it did in Shouryu's era despite his fifty years on the throne. The alliance between Kei and En was rapidly cooling. Yoko could not warm herself to Koushita who was almost the opposite of Shouryu. Koushita likewise an ex-warrior was gruff and did not have a single diplomatic skill. He did not have very good opinions for women despite Yoko's long ruling. Hence while they did not quarrel, they did not become friends.

"We found this," he tossed a package onto her table. "The note said that it was for Yoko the Kei-Ou and Kouya. Since we have no idea who Kouya is, I'm passing it to you."

She untied the package, her hands trembling as she did. The flat package was a photo album filled with pictures taken from a camera that Rokuta had whisked away. They were still so happy back then. Tracing their faces, a tear slid down her face.

"Just thought you might want it," he said with a confused look on his face. "Was it something you didn't want?"

She wiped her tear away and laughed sadly, "No, it is something I want. Thank you."

Koushita turned away with a pleased look on his face.

_No. It's different. It didn't happen this way- Koushita was never friendly or warm—_

The scene replayed itself.

She untied the package, her hands trembling as she did. The flat package was a photo album filled with pictures taken from a camera that Rokuta had whisked away. They were still so happy back then. Tracing their faces, a tear slid down her face.

Koushita pulled the photo album away. "Kei-Ou, you were the last person who spoke to the Eternal King. What exactly did you say to him?"

_Yes. He's always been frank to the point of being brutally honest. What happened after that?_

He leaned close till he was almost face to face. "You drove him to commit suicide, didn't you?" He jabbed at the photos. "These are Kaikyaku magic. These must have driven him for a certain longing. He wouldn't have disappeared just like that. If- It- Weren't- For- You."

She froze. With all her ministers and friends support, she had forgotten that even though Koushita was the En-Ou, he was not privy to certain information. He had been a simple officer in one of the King's army and as such had unrealistic ideals of Shouryu. Love to most people of this world was a very uncommon idea, so most could not comprehend how much she and Shouryu loved each other. They had not bonded together merely because they were both Taika, she had fallen for Shouryu's carefree ways. While Shouryu, well he said he fell for the way she would twitch her nose when she got angry. There was no saying what the truth was, but there was no denying that Shouryu made her laugh a way no one could and that Shouryu always had a particular look when he gazed at her.

"Tell me. Kei-Ou,' he leered.

"Your majesty—" the slim, platinum blond kirin tugged at Koushita's arm, his small, doleful purple eyes pleading him to stop.

"Tell me!" he slammed his palms onto the thick, oak carved table, the sound of his palm ringing through the room.

"It's none of your business," she said, her voice taking on an icy edge. She knew now with great certainty that the ties between En and Kei would never be the same again. Looking upon them with great disdain, she coldly said, "I thank you for the photo album and your time for coming all the way here when you could have asked someone  _else_  to do it. For future reference, you should do that. Goodbye." She beckoned Koshou who had peered in after Koushita loud outburst. "Please escort our guests to their mounts. They have completed their business."

As he left, he muttered under his breath though it was loud enough for everyone to hear, "Murderer-"

She sank into her seat, relieved she was finally alone. The sound of his last word was still resonating in her mind. She slapped the table hard, trying to wash his last word and her following thoughts away.

_They all should be burnt._

Her hands trembling, she pulled out a well-worn paper; the nostalgic language of her childhood.

" _My dearest Yoko,_

_I wonder what my successors will be like. Will they brave, cowardly, quiet, serious, funny, witty? I hope they aren't like me. It is selfish to say such, but perhaps if they were like me, you might fall in love with them. To a man who is dying, leaving a lady behind to pine for him is very un-gentlemanly. I hope secretly that I will be the only who will receive your love. You... will probably receive this letter after the Hakuchi has fallen._

_There are many things I wished I have told you more. Like the way your nose crinkles when you get angry, the way your voice flows when you trying to stop yourself from laughing, the way you look when you try to be more serious than you are, the way you laugh when you are with me. I loved them all._

_I write this letter in hope that you won't despair after I am gone, that you'll remember the good times and the bad. One cannot walk into the future while only looking at the good past. We must remember the bad. We must remember the time we sneaked out and got caught in Tai. Or the time when Keiki had come looking very displeased while we were in the You Province."_

She smiled faintly, remembering the nights where they had spent on people's roofs watching the stars and the moon rising.

_Shouryu, why did you leave me alone?_

The scene darkened and disappeared. It was so dark in here. She could not even see her hands right in front of her nose. Getting to her feet, she began to probe around in the dark, searching for something – a light, an exit or maybe even a conclusion.

* * *

Sekki inspected the records. There was nothing different about the records. Both Shoukei and Sekki had gone over the records multiple times. Either Saibou was very cunning, or that he was not doing anything wrong. He could hear Shoukei muttering as she ran through the records again.

The crisp air was the only indicator that autumn had finally come. Last year, they had celebrated Mid-autumn festival or as Yoko called it "Tsukimi" – moon viewing festival. They ate dango and tied pieces of paper with wishes on a tree. That was the only time in the last ten years that he saw Yoko smile even if it was a ghost of a smile. Tsukimi would be here again and it would be close to a year since Yoko disappeared.

"I wonder if Yoko will come back in time-" Shoukei sighed.

"I wonder if she'd come back at all-" Sekki retorted.

"Surely you don't mean that?"

Sekki looked at her. They both knew that that question was a valid worry. The Yoko now was someone they could not have confidently agreed that they knew.

"Here!" she stood up excitedly, jabbing at a name on the books. "I noticed it awhile back. This name, Kouya kept coming up. Yet there is no records of him in anywhere in the land registry or sages."

* * *

Kantai sat beside Yoko. He was still seething from Taka's threats. He gripped his sword tightly.

_They will have to kill me first before they can harm her majesty._

He was finally alone for once and he couldn't even enjoy it.

"Daishiba," Called a deep, low pitched voice that seemed to come from the shadows.

Kantai nearly dropped his sword when he heard the shirei speak. "I can feel the taiho. He is not close by, but he has been in this world for awhile."

"Can you fetch him?"

The deep voice sounded solemn as it said, "I can find him, but neither of us may be able to find her majesty. She has a very weak life force. I can barely feel it even now."

"Do you know what happened?"

He could feel as though the shirei was shaking its head as it spoke, "I cannot say for sure, but Jouyuu and Hankyo has told us of what limited knowledge they has. Her majesty went to the Yellow Sea in search for a man called Kouya. She timed her search in time for the Reison Gate. The party she entered with was almost wiped out. That was when she left them against their advice. She fought bitterly and almost died many times. Following Taiho's standing orders, Hankyo forcibly had brought her majesty to a safe place. That place was once a toutetsu's cave and was empty of any youma. Her majesty in anger dismissed Hankyo, forcing him to return to Taiho."

The shirei paused, gathering his thoughts. "She did not find the man called Kouya, but she found something else. You might find it in her pocket."

Kantai reached over and pulled out her pocket: a wrinkly piece of paper, a piece of jade, some jerky, some coins, a traveller's pass, the Hekisoujo and a piece of sash. There was nothing special in any of the items. The jade seemed to be something that she had often worn; the sash seemed like a simple cloth. He unfolded the paper, it was written in the Hourai's language. Turning back to the shadow, he asked, "What did she pick up?" But the shadow remained silent.

"Who are you talking to?" questioned Naoki.

Kantai had been so engrossed in figuring out the contents in her pocket that he had not realised Naoki had returned.

He coughed slightly to hide his embarrassment, "Just talking to myself."

"These are really strange coins," remarked Naoki as he inspected them.

"Yes, they are," he agreed, snatching them out of his hands. He scooped the contents and hurriedly dumped them into his pocket.

"I brought a sword cleaning kit. Figured you might want to clean her sword," he shrugged. "It took awhile to find one. Swords are really rare antiques now."

Naoki picked up Yoko's sword and rubbed the scabbard. The rag that he had used turned up black even before finishing a part of the scabbard.

"I'll get another rag," he muttered and went out.

Kantai picked up the Suiguuto. A white sash went around the hilt and looped through the scabbard to seal it shut. It was as if to prevent herself from drawing the sword. That was when he realised that the sash had been bound so tightly, it was impossible to untie it.

"What did she pick up?" he asked again in a quiet voice.

"The sash."

Pulling it out, he inspected it again. There was nothing special about it, least nothing special that he knew of.

"After she picked it, she began to sleep badly if she slept at all." The shirei paused and when the pause lengthened into a silence, Kantai looked up, half expecting Naoki to be back. The shirei had popped his shaggy white head out of the shadow and watched Yoko.

She stirred. Gazing blankly at the ceiling, she finally turned her head only to realise Kantai was staring at her slack-jawed.

"Where am I, Kantai?" she asked. Her voice was soft and husky with a light lilt to it. It was something he never remembered her voice to be.

"You are in Hourai," the shirei replied. "We must leave now that you are awake, the Taiho—"

She laughed heartily, interrupting the shirei. "Hourai!?" she laughed even harder, covering her face with her hands. "Hourai!"

She struggled for a bit before realising she was too weak to pull herself into an upright position. "My sword," she commanded, holding her hand out.

Kantai gazed at her blankly, his grip tightening on her sword.

"My sword, Kantai," she demanded again.

"Not until you tell us what happened," he said, at last finding his voice and wits.

"Hyouki, retrieve my sword."

"I apologize, my majesty. I cannot carry out that order. Kantai is the key factor in your safety in this world. I cannot jeopardize him."

She sighed. "If only you knew the magnitude of what you are insisting." She turned away and said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Koushita is an ass! I don't know why he turned out this way, but he just did. I guess asses can be kings too.


	5. Chapter 5

Sliding the door open, Kantai crept out of the room. He had been puzzling over the sash and was still unable to figure it out, but perhaps the wrinkled paper could. Naoki turned at the sound of the door. He had been sitting outside in the hallway, cradling a lit stick.

"What's up?"

He handed the paper over. "Please read this for me."

Naoki raised an eyebrow as he unfolded the paper. "This is one mushy letter."

" _My dearest Yoko,_

_I wonder what my successors will be like. Will they brave, cowardly, quiet, serious, funny, witty? I hope they aren't like me. It is selfish to say—_ "

He takes a long puff as he scans the letter. "Are you sure you want me to read this? It seems kinda- personal." Kantai nodded. With the first starting sentence, he had gotten an idea of who this was from and the letter might shed a light on Yoko's downward spiral.

Naoki sighed and skipped mushy paragraphs. " _I write this letter in hope that you won't despair after I am gone, that you'll remember the good times and the bad. One cannot walk into the future while only looking at the good past. We must remember the bad. We must remember the time we sneaked out and got caught in Tai. Or the time when Keiki had come looking very displeased while we were in the You Province._

_The time where you had almost gotten yourself killed after recklessly chasing bandits or the time where we both almost died while trying to tame a suugu. Had it not been for Kouya, we would both have died that day. Perhaps 'died' would have been an exaggeration. We would both have lost at least a limb that day._

_We both have our demons and before anything disastrous happen, I will kill myself. To abdicate would mean it would still take me a year to die. A lot can happen in a year and I will not risk it. Rokuta would understand. He has felt it too since kirins are closer to the heavens. The Heavens will not allow me to continue my rule. It is time for the sun to set. I have glimpsed through the future during this journey. The future does not look good, but I know my moon will rise to the challenge._

_As I had told you, I had gone to seek Kouya. No one knows where Kouya is anymore, not even the Nyosens. I went to the Yellow Sea and searched for him. I found him but barely. He was a ghost of himself. He told me something strange. When kings ascend, they do not just become immortal. They are set with a limiter. Why have not many kings lived long and prosperous lives? Before me, the longest king who ruled was Sou. After hitting 700, things tilted fast for them as it did for Ryuu. Perhaps we were talking about living kings when we were there. After talking to Kouya, I did some checks in the history. There was no history for after 4 kings were registered. After your 4 successors, the proof of your existence disappears. The kings ascend, they are defined by their limiter. When you hit it, they call for you. No matter how much good you want to be, you will go sooner or later._

_No one says such stuff because by the time they start to talk; the demons are so deep within you, you appear mad. The demons are calling for me now, I will go before I break the promise I made to Rokuta on the day of my enthronement. There is no cure._

_I left it with Kouya. I hope you'll-"_

Naoki pauses as he squints. The rain and what not had caused the ink to converge into that spot. "I can't read this part. But I'll continue."

" _not fret. Even when the sun is gone, the moon will still continue to exist, though it will no longer shine as brightly as it used you. I trust you'll use it well._

_I love you._

_Forever yours,  
Naotaka_"

The quiet chirping of the crickets and the light smell of petrichor were the long things that filled that long silence that fell between them. Both lost in their thoughts, both an earth-shattering revelation. Kantai was right about one thing, the letter definitely filled in a large amount of the gap.

" _If only you knew the magnitude of what you are insisting."_

He could only imagine the words of her replaying in his mind. How she must have struggled to know this and how she too would one day reach this limiter that Shouryu had once battled. The answers he burned to know only brought more questions. Why couldn't she had told them outright after she had received the letter, when did she receive it? He could only hazard a guess that it must have been right before she had began to stop talking. How long those years must have been for her.

He heaved a sigh that echoed a thousand sighs. Now there was only two questions that he needed answers and now. How were they going back and when.

* * *

"Saibou." Sekki entered his office. Saibou was now Daishito, minister of Earth and his office was exactly how he expected someone of his stature to be: a complete orderly mess.

"I'm busy Sekki. Can it wait?" he replied, not even bothering to look up. His assistants scampered around, shifting through the papers that when in and out of the room at a remarkable rate. Sekki motioned to the assistants who quickly scurried out. "What is the matter?" he sighed, finally putting down his paper to give Sekki a hard stare.

"Explain who or what this  _Kouya_  is," demanded Sekki as he pulled out the book and jabbed at it.

Saibou froze. His already thin lips pulled into thin lips across his face as he stared blankly at Sekki. Sekki, Daishikou, minister of Justice was clearly forcing him to answer. Running his callused hands through his hair, he found himself at lost for words. There were many things he could say, but what was he allowed to say was another thing. He clasped his hands and gave Sekki's question a long and hard thought. Finally he answered, "I don't know how who or what that is."

He knew his actions had already told Sekki otherwise, but there was no other way to keep it.

"You do understand that I'm asking this not as your friend, but as the Daishikou," Sekki steely reminded.

Saibou nodded, not quite trusting his voice. He was not an extremely skilled liar, but it was required by the secret that he swore to keep.

"Saibou-" he pleaded. "I can't help you if you won't help yourself."

Saibou looked away. Sekki sighed, "Then by the authority of the Daishikou and the approval of the Queen." He pulled the paper out with Yoko's seal on it.

Reaching over, Saibou inspected the paper. "No, this is it." Sekki looked confused.

"Kouya is the name of a sage know as Kenroushinkun. The guardian and protector for those who travel the yellow seas. I was ordered to wait till the single lettered order appeared," explained Saibou. He ruffled through the drawers, searching for something before finally pulling a folder out.

"Kouya is also the name of this." He handed Sekki a map layout and a diagram of a hamlet. "Several decades ago, her majesty came to me with this. She wanted it off the charts. No one would know of this place except in rumours. The sage Kouya, used to live there for a period of time. It is a hideout for those who wish to escape from things."

"Things?" Sekki repeated after him.

"And also for people who could not adapt. She grants them residence and a place to live in obscurity. It is not an official place and you will not find it unless you were looking for it directly. While it is now too big to be called a hamlet, it is still too small to call it a village. Perhaps it'd be better for you to see it for yourself." Saibou smiled thinly.

They exchanged looks.

* * *

She bit back a curse as she got pushed back by the never ending crowd. Hourai had changed so much since she had left. Their mannerisms and speech had changed, making them give her odd looks from just her accent and speech patterns. Suzu certainly did not like the present Hourai. She had gotten used to other world that she no longer wished to return. Kei had become her home.

"Excuse me, have you seen this girl?" she held up one of Yoko's pictures.

All she ever got was a wave as they continued on their business. The boy, Youhei was at least doing much better than she was. He managed to get most of the passersby to stop and look at the photo, not that he got anyway in any case. Left on their own, both of them struggled to get somewhere in finding Yoko.

Meanwhile Keiki wandered Hourai, following Yoko's kingly aura. The more he wandered, the more his worries deepened. The aura he was used to was bright and blinding like fire on a dark winter's night, however the aura he chased barely existed. It flickered and disappeared time to time, making tracking almost impossible. Was Yoko falling from the way? As he felt himself get closer instinctively, he could feel a slow sickness in Yoko's aura. Was a king still considered a king when his aura disappeared? He had no answers, nothing like this had happened before in history.

* * *

Yoko slept badly that night like every other night since she had picked up that sash. Her dreams were dark and gloomy, filled with the water monkey taunting her. She would dream of the day she climbed up mount Kaku. She had abandoned the last five of those who climbed to seek the throne. She had never wanted to be their saviour that they portrayed her to be during the journey. Her quest was never to Mount Hou. She had climbed onto the ledge, following the markings of the one before her. There was no saying who had climbed before her, however considering that the route was so off the path, she believed it to be Shouryu. Leaving everything to fulfil the pact she made with Shouryu and Rokuta, her heart was pounding with trepidation and expectation; much like chasing a rainbow hoping to find a leprechaun she wryly thought. Then, that night sent all her hopes crashing down. The man sat so still in the cave. It was obvious as one look that that man could not be alive. His skin clung onto his bones, crinkling as it overlapped each other in excess. His eyes sunken so deep into his skull that you could barely see it and then there was his hair. His hair was oddly the only thing that could have been alive. It clung to his wrinkled skin still tied in its ponytail.

There were no words she could describe him. That man who once sat there alive had the face of Shouryu. The man she had loved so much was not just dead, he was the corpse in front of her. She ran her fingers down his face, her body yearning for the touch of his warmth again. It was only much later after she clasped his hands in hers that she finally managed to utter a single word, "Shouryu."

Turning to the sound of the rustling behind her, she came face to face with Kouya. She knew instinctively that it was Kouya, but he was not like she remembered him to be. The Kouya she remembered always had a ready smile or smirk as Shouryu described. Cheeky and talkative were part of Kouya previously, now this man that stood before her was a shadow of him. He pulled a slow, faint smile, behind his brown eyes lurked a shadow that she had not seen before. She had not seen him since before Shouryu died, a good seventy years ago, but she had not expected such a great deal of change.

"Yoko," he spoke. His voice was rough as though he had not spoken for a long period of time.

She looked down guiltily; everyone had pushed everything to him. How could she have expected the same mischievous man to greet her after all that? They had made him kill Shouryu.

He cleared his throat several times before speaking again. "Please follow me." He motioned her to the small fire at the edge of the cave. Night had fallen outside, lost in her sorrow and guilt after finding Shouryu, she had completely lost track of time.

"Please tell me-" she paused, the guilt sinking in her again. She could not bear to ask him to relive the moment of killing his true friend of many years.

"I summoned the demon, it had sucked his soul out." He said simply without hesitation as though he had practiced many times to this question. He held out the jade, "He left this for you."

He settled the pale blue jade into her hands. The coolness of the jade chilled her. It was the treasure of En, a treasure that Shouryu had made although he never really did explain what its use was for.

"Kouya-" she started, looking up. He was gone. Perhaps he hated them now, hated them for putting him through all this.

* * *

When Yoko woke up the next day, she was feeling no better than the day before. A slow sluggish movement had taken place in her limbs. Her shell was dying, she could feel it. She knew the longer she stayed here, the faster her death would come. Tiredly, she wondered if her struggle was even amounting to anything. Shouryu had succeeded no more than she had, what could she hope to achieve if Shouryu couldn't.

She turned her head. Outside the sky was just lightening. The inky sky was slowly dipped with the fiery red as the glowing circle made its way into the sky. The sounds of the birds waking from their slumber filled the air. If she closed her eyes, all these would nearly feel like the Kinpa Palace. Perhaps she would wake up and find herself back at her room in the inner palace. Her maid, Shuka, tying her turquoise drapes up as Gyokuyo busies herself in preparing her tea and morning meal. She must have made a noise because she heard Kantai rising then softly calling her.

She nodded to his calls and permitted him to pull her into a sitting position. Even sitting up made her tired now. She must do it now before she would be barely be able to keep herself awake.

"Kantai. There is somewhere I need to go," her lips barely moving as she did.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably realized it while reading this chapter, a lot are being revealed. I wanted to move on to something instead of Yoko's moping moping moping. Geez, she mopes a lot I swear! So does Kantai. And I'm not really interested in Keiki's trip to Hourai. Don't keep your fingers crossed for more on Keiki.


	6. Chapter 6

The seasonal browns and reds blurred into a myriad of colours as they sped across the endless landscape. Autumn was well into its way. Harvest festivals thanking the king for the harvest were just beginning around the country. This was usually Yoko's favourite time of the year, where the ministries themselves would fall into a quiet lull, enjoying the bountiful harvest. There were times where Sekki had joined Yoko into mingling in these festivals; drinking themselves silly and dancing till their feet would hurt for days. When Rakushun was still alive, their small parties would often turn rowdy. Rakushun was a terrible drinker and was more than often the cause of many jokes. He would swear never to drink again the following day, only to 'accidentally' drink in the following year. Sekki smiled faintly as he remembered Rakushun. He was an extremely efficient minister and was the Daishito before Saibou; not that Saibou was not an efficient minister, it's just that Rakushun was more efficient and was the pioneer to many ingenious systems.

Shifting his focus back to his task at hand, he looked down at the map on his lap. They were quickly approaching the Sanku River and according to the instructions, the village lay between this river and the Mount Rei. Not close enough for travellers to use the river or the mountain as a landmark, at least not for people travelling on feet and people travelling by air who were not looking for it. Not big enough for people to stop by, not small enough for people to miss it; flanked by thick untouched forests and bewildering wilderness, that was the village Kouya.

The village was something that he could not quite call a village. The large building in the centre had the turquoise tiles that were only used for official buildings and encircling it was a myriad of middle sized buildings that was typical of a small city. However the small houses and large, the large bountiful golden fields, wide spread surrounded this cluster of buildings, making Kouya indefinable as a city or a village for it was neither.

Reining their youjyuu to a slow walk, they peered at the village with puzzled eyes as they strode towards the turquoise building. No one gave Shoukei and Sekki so much as a glance as they landed at what seemed the main gate although both were donning the official's uniform. Sekki's dark red uniform marked him clearly as an official from the Ministry of Fall which more than often had caused a stir when he occasionally made visits down below. Shoukei's ministry of Heaven's maroon outfit matched her wavy navy blue hair perfectly which she tied up with a simple clasp in her hair. The Ministry of Heaven officials rarely had their appearances down below. Their duties that consisted of managing royal and palace affairs had nothing to do with the world down below and she doubted they would even recognize the ministry she was from, but she hoped that they would the very least acknowledge her as a minister of Kei.

Two stable hands came to fetch their mounts as they arrived at the turquoise building. The carved red pillars arched elegantly towards the sky. Everything in the village was an oddity. The buildings were extravagantly built much like buildings found in Gyoten and strangely for such a small village, it boasted a large and thriving marketplace.

Inside the building, a tall man barely in his thirties waited for them. His high cheekbones and large brown eyes were reminiscent of someone they knew. He bowed to them and before he could speak Shoukei said in surprise, "Rankei?"

Rankei or almost known as Keikei had gone missing almost two hundred years ago. The man smiled faintly.

"Rankei was my father. I am his fifth son, Ranjoku. My father has been dead for about a hundred years."

Neither of them had known that Keikei had a wife let alone several sons. It seemed that more and more things that never knew about were turning up. Maybe the question was how much did they actually knew and perhaps that was why Yoko was never one who sat in the palace for long.

He continued on, unperturbed by their reactions. "I am the village elder and this is my subordinate Rikashun." He motioned to man standing beside the door.

"This way," Rikashun said, opening the solid wooden door. Sekki noted that the door was abnormally thick though elaborately carved as the pillars were. Although the furnishings were plush, the room was sparsely furnished.

"Her majesty didn't like excessive furnishing," Ranjoku said, affirming what Shoukei suspected. "I suppose you are here for that." He paused, his lips compressing into a thin line as he registered the bewilderment on their faces. Sekki opened the box that Rikashun proffered. Inside laid simply a pale blue jade. They looked apologetic when Sekki asked what it was for. "All I know that it is a set of two: the man and the woman, or maybe the king and the queen. It was a few decades before the Eternal King passed away when he made it. He took the other piece and left this piece here with the instructions of ' _when it is needed, Yoko will come'_."

She stroked the carvings of the jade as she pondered what it was for. It was an intricately carved woman holding a sword; her hair flowed around her as though the wind was blowing. It almost looked like Yoko.

"Then what can you tell us about this village?" she asked. The existence of this village was the most peculiar thing, existing not only far from anything that could be used as a landmark but almost constantly shifting the plants around them to build a labyrinth to discourage outsiders.

"Then we should start from the beginning. This village is not part of Kei even though it is. It is a part of all the Twelve Kingdoms." He pointed to the carvings on the walls and pillars. There was a signature design from every kingdom weaved onto the every pillar and door. "This village is place for the kings, the queens and the sages to stay. Clearly not all sages know this place. The villagers are people who cannot adapt in the normal world; some Kaikyaku, Sankyaku and the sages who tire of people raising questions to their unaging selves. Sometimes the Kirins come here too. Eternal King's kirin used to come here frequently and now most frequently would the Shunrin. There is no military here. All works are done by us."

Ranjoku got up. His dark grey robe swished as he strode purposefully to the cupboard. He withdrew a scroll which they quickly identified by the colour of the roller and ribbon used to tie it up.

"About a hundred and seventy years ago, her majesty, Eternal King and a sage named Kouya founded this village. There were only three buildings then: this, the market and the large community house on the outskirts. "

Ranjoku held out the purple roller, Kei's official colour for orders from the Queen.

" _By order of the Kei-Queen, Sekishi,_

_I hereby announce that this parcel of land, within this circle of forest is given to the citizens of this village 'Kouya'. The administration will neither retrieve this land even past its last resident nor interfere with the affairs of this village. Consequently, the residents of the village pledge never to indulge in associations that do not adhere to the Way."_

Yoko's directions were clear as were the promises made to her by those living in this village.

"The sage named Kouya was the first elder. He lived here for ninety years before leaving. Under her majesty's directions, I became the next elder and have been here ever since," he smiled thinly. "I remember Lord Kouya laughing constantly. He was a jolly man until that day that made him decide to leave after that."

Sekki frowned. The dates seemed to match. Twenty years before the Eternal king passed away, there were mild signs that there were underlying issues. Yoko and Eternal king laughed less, smiled less and more than often wore a sign of weary and uneasiness.

Oblivious to the quiet discussion Sekki and Shoukei were having, Ranjoku continued, lost in his thoughts. "I remember that day clearly. A wanted sage known to have killed and murdered children had entered this village. Kouya summoned Okii-no to hunt and capture him, but he managed to flee into the forest. Her majesty and the Eternal king witnessed the fight and proceeded to assist in apprehending the sage. They had a long discussion and when they returned. Lord Kouya no longer carried that carefree smile."

"May we see the records?" Sekki now intrigued, asked.

Ranjoku pulled out the thick book from that era. "We will take our leave now, he said, bowing as they left.

Sekki flipped through the records. There was nothing exciting or out of the norm in there. Some of the entries sounded like someone keeping a diary more than a record.

"Sekki, look at this." She pointed to a particular entry. It was unlike the clear and precise handwriting of the sage called Kouya, the entry was similarly unlike his other. Messy and loopy, the entry seemed to ramble on.

_34 summer day, Hyoju 91_

_I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but it seems that there are cracks in the sages here. It would hardly seem right to say that it was Chris's fault, but what she said did make me wonder. Were we all here by some wretched mechanics of the unseen god? I don't see why she resents being here. Her long pale blond hair earns her much respect that she does not deserve. Why do I need to write this entry? Why has Lord Kouya assigned me this entry writing? Lord Kouki described the 'King's Aura' as a irresistible desire to be with that person. In Japan, we call it Love. For all we may know, the 'God' here is Cupid himself. Heh, that'd be just a bad joke. Jutei was quite irritated with Chris (he calls her Keishi). Life here in "Koya" is unchanging. The fresh meat that come here, leave here with the basic knowledge of life here and its speech. Some never come back, some do. Shiozo (or Shigeru as us Japanese pronounce it) says we take life here in the village for granted. The very language outside the life of Koya rejects the existence of the Kaikyuku. There are few Sanyaku here. Most generally find the language adaptable and find fitting into the regime of the life here manageable. I still remember landing here. No one forgets it or the people we left behind. Yet why do we whine even though we rejected the choice to return home? Most of us like me left barely a trace of ourselves back there. Here, in Koya, in the kingdom of Kei and Yoko (her majesty who is really nice and stern), the proof of our existence and the fact we are needed is clear cut here._

_There was a very heated quarrel between two sages: Keishi and Jutei. A fight broke out that forced Hashi, Shiozo and Yousei to pull them apart. Two stalls were damaged._

_Sages Keishi and Jutei were reprimanded by Hanki._

_Written on behalf of Lord Kouya,_

_Hashi._

"There's another one here," Shoukei remarked as she flipped through the entries rapidly.

_21 Autumn day, Hyoju 94_

_The village was remarkably quiet after Jutei left. Although it is not my position to say, what Chris said had much of effect on everyone. It is a rippling effect. God's hand here is prominent and yet when you think about it, what is there to say that God's hand is not in everything? If the seeds bloom from the eggs of wild Yaboku, if child hatch from Riboku because a couple prays, then what is to say that the choices we make are not part of it. Her ideology I fear may be more disquieting than she thinks it is._

_Nothing to report._

_Written on behalf of Lord Kouya,_

_Hashi._

"Isn't Jutei the sage who was caught selling and murdering children?" Shoukei whispered.

* * *

Reliving her memories of the days with Shouryu had become a habit that she could not break away from. She clutched Suiguutou tightly. It felt like the pressure on the back of her mind had eased up just being in Hourai. To die in Hourai was more preferable than dying back in the Twelve Kingdoms. At least she would die here, knowing that all is safe in Kei. Shoukei was extremely intelligent; she would eventually realize what her letter meant. It had taken her awhile to write that, not because it was difficult but rather that she was not allowed.

 


	7. Chapter 7

There were many other entries written by Hashi. Each told them more about the mental state of living in Koya and the sage Keishi though as the entries progressed, they became more business-like and seemed to lose its innocence.

_12 Spring day, Hyoju 94_

_Sage Keishi and Jutei had a falling out again. Han King Toushiku was forced to play peacemaker again. A long discussion between the three of them was fairly heated and lasted almost two hours. Sage Keishi was sentenced to 1 week of farm work for provoking Sage Jutei._

_Written on behalf of Lord Kouya,  
Hashi._

"I think Hashi might know more of what was going on," Shoukei commented as she flipped through his entries. "Ranjoku?" she called out. The door opened immediately as though he had been pressing his ear to the door waiting for them to summon him. But it was not Ranjoku that came, it was Rikushun.

"Yes my lady. I apologize Sir Ranjoku has been called away by pressing issues," he said quickly bowing.

"These sages- Hashi and Keishi, can you bring them here?"

Rikushun gasped at her words and clapped his mouth in shock as though she had said something utterly so rude. "Hashi died in Hyoju 120 and Keishi," his voice dropped noticeably, speaking Keishi's name almost in a whisper. They leaned forward to pick up what he was saying. "She was-" he stopped and looked away, unable to continue.

"What about Yousei?" Sekki questioned.

Rikushun shook his head. "If you want a sage in that group, most of them are dead or have been missing for a very long time. But there is-" he paused as though searching for the name or words he was looking for. "Shiozo still lives at the edge of the woods, just west of here."

* * *

 

Naoki drove the car in silence. The morning had started out horribly. The rain poured to no end and the girl that Kantai coddled refused to take no for an answer. She was clearly ill at ease but refused to rest for a day longer or the very least till the rain stopped. So with her face with almost the colour of chalk and Kantai carrying her on his back, they made their way to this place that she did not even know the address to for the address she gave was very much outdated. The pair of them even insisted on carrying their swords with them. Guns were easy to hide, but swords were banned and easily noticeable. God forbid should they be pulled over by some random cop.

He bit back his anger, unwilling to let go of the only proof that Amaya had not ran away, she had been whisked away against her will. He will prove Taka wrong. Amaya looked barely over 16 when he saw her again. Why did things always happen to Amaya? She was kidnapped when she was 4 and eventually found her way back when she was 12. She never was quite the same after that, constantly talking to herself and preferring to be by herself. He could see her look of disbelief every time he closed her eyes. The scene replaying itself, time after time.

_He gaped at the sixteen year old in front of him. Her silky black hair plastered down her face as the rain pattered down from above. Her brown eyes looked upon him in disbelief. It couldn't be her; he heard the voice at the back of his head say. Probably her daughter, it said. Until she spoke, "I'm back? Nao, you're so… old now." She laughed and placed a hand on his cheek. "Why are you so old?"_

_"Ama?" he asked and reached to grab her. She slid from his grip, laughing before running to the nearby alley. He chased after her, but she was gone._

"Amaya-" he said unconsciously.

* * *

 

"Shoukei," he called out as they rode in silence. Rikushun refused vehemently to guide them. It was almost as though they were afraid of this sage called Shiozo. "I've just realized. Hashi mentioned the Han King Toushiku. Didn't Han fall in Hyoju 100?"

Shoukei looked thoughtfully at his words. Then carefully selecting her words, she replied, "They said he killed his Kirin."

"I've heard of that too. Do you think-?" The unsaid question hung over them as they approached the man by the hut.

The lone man threshing the rice looked up at their arrival. "Officials?" he grunted. "I've told every official before me the same, and I'll do the same to you two. I don't know anything about Jutei."

"We aren't here for Jutei. We want to know about the sage Keishi."

Shiozo looked uncomfortable at the name. "So I guess you're them," he said. "Yoko said that my punishment was to live. My fault I guess."

"Perhaps it'd be good to start from the beginning," Sekki prompted as they made their way into the small house.

"It started with a comment of mine. The presence of god in this world is unmistakable; perhaps that's why no one here prays to god. This encouraged Chr- I mean Keishi's thoughts." He nursed the cup of tea that he had poured for the three of them. "She had been a devout Christian in Hourai. When I first met her, the first thing she said to me was 'God sent me here to do his work.' Of course, quickly she resigned to the fact that no one was interested and eventually shut up about it. How was I to know that twenty years later, she still had the idea that God sent her here?

That was when she started it. God sent her here not to save us, but to destroy it. God lives everywhere in here.  _If the seeds bloom from the eggs of wild Yaboku, if child hatch from Riboku because a couple prays, then what is to say that the choices we make are not part of it. The kirin that chooses the king has gold hair, her gold hair is unmistakably the sign that she was chosen by God. Back in Hourai, her family was a family of pure black hair. Her father had thought that her mother had cheated on him, but when they tested her DNA, she was proved to be undoubtedly her father's."_

He paused here to pull out a large book. Inside had photos similar to what Yoko kept in her desk. He tapped on the picture of a blond hair girl. Her long pale blond hair would have caused Sekki to mistake her for a kirin if he hadn't know she was not one. Her large doleful pale green eyes and graceful looks were quite similar to some of the kirins he had seen.

"It went on for a few years but no one really paid attention to her. We all thought she was quite mad to be honest. However when Hashi came, he took her quite seriously. In Hourai there is a word 'Fate' or 'Destiny' which ever you prefer. Some of us Kaikyaku believe that there are paths in life that no matter how much you try to avoid, you'll always end up on it because you are destined to do so. For example a man fated to farm, even after leaving the village and getting a big job in the big city, may end up returning for various reasons and live his life out farming instead. Anyway, he said that Keishi may try to brainwash them."

He pointed out the man of topic on the photo. A young man of maybe twenty looked back at them. His hair carefully swept back, his long sleeves hiding the drawings on his arms that he sported in some other photos. "The seven of us were best friends. Jutei, Hashi, Yousei, Hiruma, Kousho, Gyokuya and me. This of course excluded Keishi since we all thought she was crazy. We were sages under the employ of the kings and queens. We ran the groundwork for them, watching for corrupted ministers and potential issues. Most of us were barely here. Except for Hashi, who was the one assigned for Kei. Keishi got into his brain real bad. This made Jutei extremely angry. They argued and even fought."

He sighed. "Jutei left. He didn't want to listen to Keishi's gibberish anymore. Problem is, an idea is infectious. You can't cure an idea. Once it's said and heard, there's no going back. That day we all heard Keishi speak, we all were corrupted by it. So when Jutei left, he found himself wondering why all these. Whether he was sent here to simply aid these mysterious people who have the power to live forever and bestow as such on other. Then he said to me when I met him in Gyouten. ' _If the way is what we're meant to live by. Then I'll prove that my actions are not dictated by this God person._ ' Then as you know, he went as far off from the Way. I didn't see him again until just before he died. He was quite mad by then." Shiozo looked at them with resignation in his face. The sky had gotten quite dark by then. The stark room echoed the long and painful punishment that Yoko had meted out; a punishment to live, to remember and to tell for those who require of it. A bundle of wheat sat miserably at a bare corner, the walls were empty of any decorations save for the lonely sword hanging on a nail.

"I don't think anyone of the seven of us is alive anymore. Hashi killed himself, Yousei removed himself from the sage registry and died naturally, Hiruma and Gyokuya disappeared, Kousho hung Keishi then himself. I am here because I have to be. This story has been my burden and shackles. So now you know the truth and have been infected with it and I am free."

He smiled grimly at their worried faces. "Now you have everything you need to save her." He stood up and ushered them out.

"Wait," Shoukei cried out. "Did she kill the Han King?"

"No, not directly at least," he replied. The look on his face was indescribable as he gazed at them from the doorway. "Good luck. You'll need plenty of it. Good bye." He said before slamming the door at their faces.

* * *

 

When Keiki awoke again that night, he was struck by terrible and inexplicable grief in his heart. His heart cried out for his master, he longed for the presence of her royal aura though more than that, he wanted to cradle her in his arms to assure himself that she was still there. As the days passed, he could feel her slipping more whether he could detect her aura. It became fainter and so hard to find to the point that he only moved when he could feel its location again. Certainly he must be getting closer, he said to himself, nevertheless the aura grew no stronger as he moved towards it.

His pale purple eyes peered down at the sleeping form of the Kaikyaku called Youhei. He had brought him to Hourai as dictated by Yoko but for what purpose. He could not fathom Yoko's thoughts. This inability to understand Yoko was nothing new. During her 400 years rule, Yoko became skilled at playing people like chess pieces despite the fact she hated doing so. ' _To move the mountain, you begin by removing the small stones.'_  It was a strange quote that he had heard Yoko say before.

"Keiki-" a voice called out. He searched for glowing portal that the bracelet Gogoukanda created. "Our Shirei have not turned up any new clues to where she is in that direction you are headed. But Shun King has informed me that Youma has been spotted on the edges of Kei and En. At this point of time, we cannot tell if it's En or Kei that is tilting. We can only hope for the best." Renrin's glum voice said otherwise. Keiki knew the odds were against them.

He smothered a sigh as he responded. He felt a gnawing exasperation of the lack of clues though he tried to rein it in, he could not help but being curt. "Thank you Renrin." The portal disappeared. The kirins of countries had responded to Keiki's request for aid swiftly, Yoko's proof that the alliance between countries for aid in times of emergency worked wonders. They owed so much to Yoko and Eternal King. They both insisted on creating food safe houses in their neighboring countries for times in need which have saved many countries or the very least stalled their starvation for a few years. Now there were even storehouses for each country in Mount Hou. In times of aid for missing rankas, kirins and what not, they all used the Hou-ou to muster aid thus decreasing the time of absence that could have rendered the country stricken.

It was times like these that the Taika Kirins were of much help. Shunrin landed softly beside him. She was still a relatively young kirin being of only 38 years of age. Despite that, her country was reasonably stable for her to come to aid Keiki. She shook her hair, its black slowly reverting to its original red. Like the previous black Kirin, Taiki, Shunrin was a rare Seiki; flaming red mane and pure white pelt when she transforms.

"Keiki" she said, pursing her lips as her red eyes falling upon the sleeping Suzu and Youhei. "I've found what Youhei had described. We should make our way there."

"Does that mean you found her?"

"No," she turned and looked at Keiki. She wondered idly if the colour of their mane was a reflection of their personality. Keiki whose mane was pale gold was quiet and often seen emotionless, Renrin on the other whose mane was dark gold was more than often seen as a pessimist. She was not very familiar with many Kirin, but the Kourin whose mane was pale gold was rather quiet as well. "Just a possibility that we might find more traces of her." She flung her hand out, "Anything to go on has to be better than this."

He sighed. "And how did we get this information."

"From this," she tugged the piece of cloth from Youhei's hands. A pale gold sash with the embellishment of Kei and En entwined.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I write about Keishi, the less I like her. Funny though since I didn't plan for her to be so 'big'. She's writing herself now. I'm holding on Yoko's side because I'm waiting for Sekki to catch up. I debated on what commoners must call the ministers and sages of importance. –Sama? Or master? Both sounded odd, so I settled on Lord. Since they usually call the kings and queens "Her majesty" and master (only for Keiki). Frankly quite the same if you ask me. Anyway yay for Amaya. My favourite character of no importance. Which by the way, Seiki just refers to red Kirin. It's a pretty literal translation seeing that Black Kirin is 'Ko'ki which is Black 'Ki'. Heh.


	8. Chapter 8

The smell of people was clearly unnerving Keiki, Shunrin noted. It was not that Keiki didn't descend to the lower world time to time; it was just that unlike the Twelve Kingdoms, people in Hourai packed closer and lived in greater density. She too struggled with herself as a housewife sat beside her carrying a basket laden with fish and meat. The housewife casted the trio an odd look, sliding from Shunrin to Suzu and then to Youhei. Suzu shifted awkwardly in her black outfit that Shunrin called 'office wear'. They clung to her body and made movement confiding. Shunrin and Youhei had explained that they had police that caught children for skipping school, but Suzu could not fathom why anyone would even bother. When she said that, they just sighed in exasperation. She went along with it regardless seeing both of them were from this place's era.

There was the distinct winter chill as they stepped out of the train. Winter was approaching. When Yoko had been lost in Hourai, it had been almost Autumn, now Yoko has been missing for over two months and counting. From the news that Renrin brought them every night, it sounded like either En or Kei was tilting fast. The ministers were betting on En, seeing how in spite of the  _short_  absence of the Queen, the work done by the ministers were still following the way. Even Tai took 4 years to develop the state it was, remarked one of the lower ministers.

Shunrin was not too sure about the ministers of Kei, but she could trust Yoko that she was doing something out of a necessity rather than a whim. Yoko had been the first non-kirin she saw when she entered the Twelve Kingdoms. Dressed in long robes, Yoko's piercing green eyes and fiery red hair stuck her as scary. She was a person of few words however so Shunrin had heard that Yoko was not always so sullen. Despite her quiet demeanor, Yoko's brutal honesty felt the most trustable in the strange world she had just arrived in and even though Yoko was not a fellow Kirin, she found Yoko more easily relatable than the other kirins. When Shunrin told her so, a ghost of a smile surfaced on Yoko's face. A memory she would never understand, one of the Nyosen told her when Shunrin had asked. Shunrin had later realized that when they stood side by side, their red hair could make people mistaken them for siblings; which she developed a secret wish that Yoko was actually her sister despite it being even possible, after all Kirins came from the hand of God itself.

Ignoring the 'Keep out' sign, they strode over broken fences, through unkempt gardens and occasionally in and out of houses, passing rows and rows of houses. The paint was peeling off many of them; bits of rubbish littered the gardens.

"What's with these houses?" Youhei finally asked, breaking the gloomy silence that had fallen on the four of them since dawn broke.

"They're-" Shunrin paused, searching her memory of her old history classes. Though Youhei was now eighteen, he had been lost in the Twelve kingdoms for over four years and had not have studied them since they were only taught of this in the graduating classes of sixteens and seventeens. "Part of the old Yogata. A few decades ago, an outbreak began here and spread through Yogata. Citizens that could be evacuated were moved to the outer areas. The government quarantined these Citizens in these houses. Thousands died and in fear of infection, many areas were burnt. These houses survived it, but since it was within the Inner Yogata, no one ever wanted to move back. The government barricaded this place and called it Old Yogata." She explained as they rounded the bend.

Suddenly, Keiki uncharacteristically broke into a run. Without even bothering to exchange looks, the trio hurried after him. Their heavy steps echoed through the empty houses, their breaths were ragged by the time they caught up with Keiki who had stopped. In front of them were none other that Yoko and Kei's Daishiba, Kantai.

* * *

It was night by the time they arrived back at Koya. Ranjoku, flanked by Rikushun was waiting for them at the gate. Their faces were solemn as they watched Sekki and Shoukei arrive.

"Lord Sekki, Lady Shoukei," he said, affirming their presences. "I assume that you have found what you were looking for?" He asked though it did not seem much of a question but rather a statement.

Shoukei and Sekki glanced at each other. Shiozo's story had been quite sufficient to give them an idea of what might have happened, but his last reply was intriguing. Feeling much like chess pieces on an unseen board, Shoukei asked, "It was quite satisfactory. This sage ' _Keishi'_  seems to have played a larger part of history that we knew." Rikushun flinched horribly at her name.

Ranjoku nodded agreeably. Unlike Rikushun, Ranjoku had not reacted to Keishi's name. "We have more questions to ask you," Sekki said. They took another turn into another hallway. This turquoise building was laid out more complex than they had originally thought possible. Ranjoku slid the key into the lock and pushed the door. Slowly, it swung open, opening itself to a room filled with nothing but books. Stacks of book piled onto the floor and onto the table. The only thing that did not seem to have books on it was the bed and the lone cushioned chair in the middle of the room. There was no other indication of whom might have stayed in this room. Ranjoku strode in, weaving his way around the books to the lone chair. Rikushun stayed outside the door, his head bent like some do when in face of royalty.

"Is there-" Sekki began, sweeping his eyes across the room. Shoukei and Sekki entered the room. Struggling their way across the room, Sekki noticed the repeated pattern on the turquoise carpet. He stopped, pushing the piles of books from the carpet. Shoukei looked quizzically at him then at the ground. There was nothing special on the carpet, at least not to her. The pattern was later of the embellishment of Royal Kei and En entwined together. The imagery of the Kirins embracing the symbol, a larger and smaller kirin, Layer over layer to bring about a bigger pattern, hiding the true pattern to except those observant.

"Lord Sekki, Lady Shoukei," Ranjoku patiently called out. He had freed another two chairs from their burdens and sat comfortably in one.

"I'm starting to get tired of this mystery," Shoukei remarked. She heaved herself heavily down onto the chair. "What's the point of this anyway? I got the rough idea of what's going on now, but how is this going to help?"

"There is a story you should listen to," Ranjoku said. "It all started when-"

* * *

Their last conversation.

None of this is real, Yoko. We are all chess pieces. Shouyu laughed hysterically. Kenroushin-kun are all fakes. Every hundreds of years, another is born to replace the fallen. Just like Gyokuyo. No one remembers the previous. Always remembering that they are the first. He laughs even harder.

Shouryu! Shouryu! Don't leave me!

She ran after his vanishing figure. He laughs crazily. His laughter is the only remaining sound. It echoes endlessly. She covers her ears, but they are of no use.

She struggled. It was a dream; that she knew. The fires rose around her, screaming, urging her. The heat that radiated from the ground seemed to melt her soles as the coals crunched beneath her steps. She walked in search for something: a destination, one that she didn't know of yet. Buildings rose around her. They cried at her pleading, occasionally cursing her.

Burn.

They would cry.

Burn.

They plead.

Burn.

They cursed.

Burn, burn, burn.

She spun around; the Suiguutou had appeared in her hand- unsheathed. It glimmered in anticipation. The fires now seemed to crackle at her, they laughed at her.

Incompetent.

They crowed. Rising in height, swirling around her, they laughed.

'NO!' She screamed, swinging her sword at the fire. The fire slid into too, and the image shifted. A man lay dead at her feet, her sword dripping in blood. Who was he? What happened?

"Yoko!" she heard someone call and turned around. The man with the long brown ponytail, ran towards the bleeding man and flipped him over. It was Kantai. She laughed manically. Kantai had died at her hands. She had killed Kantai. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her body. Her fingers tingled with excitement. She felt alive again. Who cares who died? This fading feeling of being alive, she wanted it.

_They should all be burnt._

She laughs. With the sound of Shouryu's laughter merging into one, she wakes with the sound of laughter on her lips.

 


	9. Chapter 9

"Your majesty!" Keiki rushed to the girl on Kantai's back. She looked up before looking away quickly, her green eyes were wide with fear, a look he had not seen in since her crowning. Slowly getting down from Kantai's back, Yoko shook her head as though to clear her mind. Keiki could feel her Kingly aura stronger now but the corruption in her aura was almost repulsive. He took a step back unwittingly at the blackness of her corruption. What could have corrupted the pure aura that his Queen once had? He didn't want to think about it. It was the same darkness he felt in You-ou, Yoko's predecessor, right before she had order all women to be banned from Kei.

"You majesty!" he called again at her refusal to acknowledge his presence. 'Will she fall too now?' the thought flashed through his head and as quickly as it came, it was gone. But the thought had already been there and there was no banishing what had already been thought of.

Yoko gripped tightly on Kantai's sleeve, tottering unsteadily. The thought of burning and killing people was thick on her tongue, ringing in her ears, coaxing her. She shook her head, trying to clear it. She refused to be fall in line with the past kings and queens; even if she had to go against her mandate of heaven to follow the way, she would not fall. How ironic that was, she thought. Would Shouryu and her plan work? There was nothing certain about it except that it might be going against the Heaven's will.

"Hello Keiki," she said, keeping her eyes onto the edge of Kantai's sleeve, looking at Keiki but not really looking. She had already seen Keiki stepping already from her and knew the disappointed look of Keiki all too well. She had seen the same look on Rokuta when Shouryu was falling into corruption as well. However things were probably different for Rokuta and Shouryu, for one Shouryu did not decide to disappear of all a sudden and the increase in whatever that revolted Rokuta had not came of such a big shock. Rokuta did believe strongly that Shouryu would preserve and come through. So did Yoko. She had almost lulled herself into thinking that Shouryu would pull through for just her. His warm presence through the lonely cold nights was more than a comfort. They both knew that, but what Shouryu looked for was more than just to be a comfort. It was doubtless that Shouryu had once again looked on ahead without her, planning for the moment where she too would be 'sentenced to death'. Using his own life as an experiment and bargaining chip, he forged onwards to save her and hopefully the many other kings after him.

She looked down at the sash that she had unconsciously pulled out for her pocket; the clamor of Keiki and Suzu complaining drowning away as she began to review the instructions on what she had to do. Would Shoukei and Sekki arrived at the point where she needed them to be? Hopefully by now Ranjoku would have told them the full story. There were many points of the story where she had to have them loop around in order to be careful of any unwanted personnel hearing the story. She trusted Shoukei and Sekki enough to know that would not have sent other personnel to check out the story, but she could never be more careful. Now it was her turn.

"There is a story you should listen to," her soft voice breaking into the commotion.

The three of them froze at her sentence. There will always be questions, but the only questions you should ask are when the answers are what you want to hear. That was a famous quote by one of the previous kings. Now a question was going to be answered, but would he want to hear the answer, Kantai was not sure.

She turned to look at the abandoned house that they stood in front. The old Yogata, it had been difficult to track a place that they did not know what had happened or how, only that something should have happened.

"The Twelve Kingdoms and Hourai are tied together." She turned to look at them, her face devoid of any emotion, the way she looked when she was giving out important orders. "No," she shook her head as if to correct herself. "I should start from the beginning."

_Where do you begin a story that you yourself are not sure where it starts?_

"An idea is infectious, even if the person who said it had not really meant it. Shouryu and I founded a village in Kei on the basis for assisting kings who had not really fallen from the way, but merely blinded by the things in front of them. We called it Koya after the sage Kouya. You may know him as Kenroushin-kun. It was a village that accepted anyone that could not cope with the world. We took people who had no affiliations to the world and trained them to be our undercover spies, spies that only the royalty and kirins knew of. Of course to assist them further, we sometimes gave them Hinman. They wander around the country sniffing for corrupted ministers or systems. One such was a man called Shiozo. He was interested in History back in Hourai and when he got washed up onto Kei, he began reading up on Kei's history. He was good with what he was assigned to, picking out issues before they even became serious issues. He was offered to become a minister, but he was only interested in going around the country reading on history. That was when he realized that none of the history books when beyond 4 kings down. The last king recorded was Tatsu-O."

"What-?" Keiki and Kantai blurted out. They exchanged looks.

"Wasn't there that-" Kantai paused searching his memory for the king before Tatsu-O. No name was going to his mind, he glanced at Keiki as though to ask him to finish his sentence. That was when Keiki become conscious of the fact that he too could not remember the name of the King before Tatsu-O.

Yoko grimly smiled as a look of realization dawned o their faces. "No one remembers the the 5th king down. Not even the books. In Hourai we have history books dating hundreds and thousands years ago, but in the Twelve Kingdoms we do not. That was when Shiozo had the idea the perhaps the reason why no one prays to God is because the presence of God in the Twelve Kingdoms is unmistakable. In Hourai, people pray to God everyday for everything; whether it's to pass their exams or for good harvest."

"Admittedly, it took awhile to get used to the fact that no one actually bothered praying to God itself unless it was to pray for children on the Riboku or for the King praying for one of the many festivals. So when Shiozo told this to one of the people living in the village of Koya, he had believed himself to be among friends. However the person he spoke to had been quite fanatically religious before she washed up onto Kei. She became obsessed with the idea and from that idea, it grew." Yoko paused and laughed wryly.

"Maybe that's why we are even here today. She infected Toushiku, the Han king, with this idea. And with this idea, he spiraled into an endless descent, which lead him to even though his own Kirin and eventually he killed Han-rin. Meanwhile, another sage under our employ went berserk and while Shouryu and I were occupied with other things like the pirates in the port, the rebellion of Gojou in Bu province," she paused, her eyes sadly trailing the length of the houses.

Kantai could remember those very well. There were a few others that Yoko had left out and while it was selfish to say, those problems far outweighed the single lone crazy minister.

"And while we were occupied," she continued softly. "Hundreds and thousands of innocent children and their parents were killed. Perhaps it wasn't our fault. Perhaps it was. But neither Shouryu and I could shake off the feeling that all that had preoccupied us had merely been a pawn in the game that God played. Because at the very same time those children died, thousands at this very same spot died. Who was Kenroushin-kun? The history of this sage has existed far beyond Shouryu's era, yet Kouya who became Kenroushin-kun was supposed to be the first ever to be so. Who is Gyokuyo? She has existed far beyond anyone can remember. What happened to the ones before them? Had they faded like some sages do when they tire of living? Why is there no record, no memory of them? Where is the proof of our existence?" Yoko's voice rising into a crescendo, darkened in desperation.

Yoko could feel a sodden but warm feeling as large arms wrapped around her. Looking up, she saw the blue eyes that had carefully watched for her for the past few days. The stiff and formal Kantai hugging her to comfort her! Had the situation been less tense, she would have broken out laughing. Standing beside them, Keiki could only watch on jealously. The moment to comfort his queen had come and gone. Better someone had done it than him, he consoled himself unconvincingly.

"Regardless," Yoko said, "when Shouryu felt the press of a particular madness growing in his mind, he thought he could preserved through it. With my careful counseling, he continued acting king even though more and more decisions were made by me. So with he came out with this."

She pulled the sash out clearly for all to see. It was the pale gold sash with the embellishment of Kei and En entwined, the exact one that Shunrin was carrying. "The original idea was to use create a sash that recorded the memories of all the kings and queens starting from us. To allow the future generations keep track of the number of kings that had passed before them. But then when we found out about Keishi, we decided to probe farther in. What her belief seemed highly plausible. If you thought about it, why did all those kings suddenly became bad? Most did not seem like they slowly lulled into madness, they seemed almost like a radical change. Like the king before Shouryu, the king who decimated almost half of his country in a matter of months. "

"Then there was Shouryu. Who though knew his thoughts were not of the way, persisted. He couldn't kill it. This sash not only will record memories, it will replay it. To keep us onto the Way, to remind us of the person we once were. Then we moved the plan of using the village Koya. The people who lived in there, live an existence separate from the rest of the realm. It is…"

Yoko motioned to the world around her, "almost like home. The idea became from just assisting kings, but to work against the corrupted ones. For as long as the ministers are still following the way, the chance to prevent the fall of the kingdom is there. As long as they reject any outrageous orders. You might call it a puppet king." She shook her head.

"Wasn't it you, Keiki? That said that it is enough to be just sitting on the throne?" She chuckled. "Then why not this way? So we created 2 sets. The Jade and the sash."

Yoko pulled out the cold blue Jade. It was carved in the very image of Shouryu.

 


	10. Chapter 10

"So that's what's left of the story," Ranjoku said. He clasped his hands, looking expectantly at the duo.

While his orders from the late En King ended there, he had received an oddly coded message from a source he could not really verify. He had great suspicion it was from Kouya. Kouya had practically been his father since his real father died, not to mention the handwriting and the way it was coded was quite undeniably Kouya. Was Kouya still alive? Ranjoku's mind doubted it, but his heart said otherwise. Even her majesty had said that Kouya was  _gone._  He knew Kouya had definitely not returned to En. Kouya hated the new En King, Koushita. In fact, there was barely anyone who liked him. His rule was harsh and his laws were erratic. He had dismissed many of the old ministers that had worked with Shouryu which made the ministers despise him even more. Oddly, before En King, Koushita was enthroned; there had not been much palace politics. The Eternal King had disliked it much and his first Chousai, Hakutaku and his first Daishikou, Shukou had wiped it out by creating a system where the ministers were allowed to move around with their positions.

However after his enthronement, Koushita had destroyed everything that the Eternal King had created, thinking that the ministers now would be free from all influences from the previous Kings- namely the Eternal King. By doing that, he had unintentionally re-directed the ministers' unhappiness towards him. There was nothing good about Koushita except being a fool. Ranjoku was more likely to believe that the all the Youma were from En than from Kei, especially after he had heard what he accused her Majesty of being. He had no right in calling her Majesty a murderer, even he was a king; a foolish king.

"So this is a pair? It looks awfully like Yoko," Shoukei said, bringing it up to the light to inspect it. The strong, sullen eyes were reminiscent of Yoko before Shouryu passed away; always looking forward, decisive and ready to leap into action when it was called for. She missed the old Yoko, the Yoko that she had been rejected for by Kantai because he was in love with Yoko. She had been cross with Yoko for many weeks but she couldn't really blame her. There was no chance that Kantai would have confessed his attraction to Yoko and there was no chance Yoko would have accepted it. Not since she had Shouryu. It hurt her to see Kantai pin for a hopeless love. The proud, stern and overly formally Kantai to the casual Yoko, Yoko would have never guessed it.

Then when Shouryu passed away, Shoukei could almost feel happy for Kantai. He finally had a chance. It was a slim chance, but it was still a chance. After all during all the years of working with her, Kantai had become Yoko's closest confidant, her closest after Rakushun passed away. Privy to all her secrets, Yoko still almost never showed Kantai her weak self. The only time he caught a small glimpse was when Shouryu died.

Yet Yoko that was always brash and frank had gone around looping her secrets in unnecessary ways. Would it have killed her to just have Ranjoku tell them the whole truth or even Saibou? Shoukei could feel the frustration and annoyance at Yoko.

' _No.'_  Shoukei shook her head at the sudden comprehension of what Yoko had been trying to convey. "She's saying: this is the story, this is the anger and frustration I felt after finding it out-" she paused, her mind still frantically piecing everything that was unsaid.

And then, holding the small jade piece out, Shoukei said, "And this is the solution."

The trio frowned at it. "Does it come with instructions?" asked Sekki.

"Well... I can't say its instructions, but Yoko told me once that in her world, jade is cleaned by washing it in cold water. But-" She looked at their hopeful faces. "What do you think will happen if dousing it with cold water was actually correct? Clearly, the Eternal King had tried and failed whatever he had tried to do. If I am not wrong, Yoko is too approaching her limiter. That is probably why she started to speak less and interfere less with the kingdom. And certainly, it was why she ran away. If she had asked us to do something insane, would we have tried to stop her? I'm sure we would, but how would we know if she wouldn't have gone behind our backs and wrote out the order and stamped it? I've never heard of a whole nation ignoring a king's order. If Hourai and Twelve Kingdoms is connected, the solution would be.."

"Destroying it."

Ranjoku listened quietly to their debate. They both had valid points. Surely Keiki and Kantai would bring her back before she did something as stupid and drastic as that but what if the only way was to separate both entities entirely? He could see why her Majesty and Eternal King had gone down that path. By separating both lands entirely, there would be no more Taikas, no more lost Ranka, no more lost kings, queens or kirins.

"And there would be no more required deaths from the Twelve Kingdoms because of the ever on-going wars in Hourai," Ranjoku's quiet whisper broke into their heated argument. "Isn't that the whole reason why her Majesty and Eternal King was aiming for? The deaths required to balance the wars in Hourai is causing the rise and fall of Kingdoms. Their limiters must have be set by the balance. The kingdom falls to balance the lost in yet another bomb or attack. Likewise for Hourai, when too many lives in the Twelve Kingdoms are lost to youma. The rampant earthquakes, excessive rain."

"If they are willing to risk it all, then why hold them back?"

The pale blue jade sat there solemnly on the table as though it knew the weight of the decision that they must make.

"Bring the water.

* * *

"Your majesty!" Keiki yelled. She was going to do the biggest mistake in the Twelve Kingdom's history. "Daishiba! Remove that jade from her!" Keiki stared furiously at Kantai.

After hearing Yoko's story, Kantai understood why Yoko had chose to go down this road. She was being herself: brash and frank to the point, ever looking forward. Kantai didn't want to admit it, but the chances were there. According to what she said, either way she would have gone so crazy that she would have either killed herself or needed someone to kill her before she destroyed the whole country. So if she banked on this, at least it would still be a chance.

"Taiho. Please understand. It is raining, even if I tried to remove it, the rain would still fall onto it." Kantai wrly replied.

If it was a chance for Yoko to live, then he would go to hell and back for her.

True enough, the rain poured around them. He turned around to search for the Hourai man that had housed them. That man, Naoki, had chosen to stay in the thing he called car. Kantai wished he had thanked the man more before they had left. He had a feeling that he was not going to see Naoki again.

A soft blue glow surrounding the jade pulsed rhythmically. Clenching the sash in her hand, she watched it as the glow began to grow and extent.

Was she really doing it to  _save_  the Twelve Kingdoms? The lines between her reasoning were being to excessively become blurred. Why did Shouryu not go through with it at the end? Why did he ask Kouya to kill him and why did he say such a weird thing to her on his last message to her.

_I will wait for you at the end._

He abandoned her! He abandoned all of them! Traitor! He promised that he would be there for her when she falls. Where was he when she had those nightmares?

The warm lingering hand on the crook of her back reminded her that Kantai was still there for her. He had always been there for her especially so after Shouryu died. Even though he was the Daishiba, he had taken the extra effort to check in on her at night. She didn't know when he knew about her nightmares, but it seemed that he did. He would hold her hand as she pretended to sleep and leave before she would rouse.

_What a foolish girl I am. Here I am, committing what probably will be the biggest mistake in history and all I can think of is Shouryu and why I never noticed Kantai._

She laughed, causing everyone to stop and stare at her like she was crazy. She probably was.

"Kantai," she turned to him, softly speaking as she undid the knots on the binding on her sword. "If I were to ever try to kill anyone but the deserved, please kill me."

"Please."

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly? I think loving someone for several hundred years is a feat worthy of the Guinness book of records. Wonder if they had such stuff. Heh!

Her green eyes gazed back at him. The beautiful eyes that had been filled with fear and hesitation were once again staring back at him with the confidence that he remembered her to have. If only it was not confidence in him that he would kill her when she did try to kill anyone by the deserved. Looking away silently, he hoped that she would take his silence as an agreement. This way, at least he would not break any promise if he refused to carry it out. He could feel her pleading stare even turned away.

"I promise," he sighed reluctantly. He could never resist her. Things were never easy around her. He wracked his memories for the last good memory and the only thing he could recall was when Shouryu was still alive, that was the pirate's invasion. How ironic his last good memory with her was on a battlefield. After Shouryu's death, everything felt like it was on a downhill. She bought his death strongly, but it felt fragile like the way glass feels. Her feelings were made worse by the endless trooping of the kings and queens from the other countries, all of them feeling unease as they watch the longest running city fall apart from its youma and calamities. They came seeking for reassurance from Kei and Kyou, the next two longest running cities.

When they lent a hand to Shun, the appearance of a red-headed kirin brought a strange smile to Yoko. She had explained how it reminded her of when she had first arrived and despite their distance and their different circumstances, Shunrin and her continued frequently exchanging messages. Kantai felt like she had adopted Shunrin to be her replacement Rokuta for both of their personality were fairly similar. Despite the fairly clear outlook of palace affairs, Yoko continued sinking deeper into herself and the ministers became increasingly distant.

Yes, it was ironic that the last good memory of being around her was on a battlefield, but she still had the carefree laughter and the lightly stern stance.

* * *

He had been in locked in a stalemate for the last 2 weeks because of Yoko's precise orders to spare as many lives as possible. How does want put down an invasion or rebellion with little lives lost? Lost in thought, he barely heard the light footsteps from the window until he heard the familiar voice.

"Kantai, send your guards away," the smooth voice of Yoko sounded beside him.

He looked up in surprise. The brown haired girl stood beside him, clad in a common's soldier outfit, analyzing the map he had been staring at just seconds ago. He glancing outside the window, he noted the shift in the movement as the guards changed duty. She had slipped in when the guards had changed with an agile ease that he wondered if she would have been a professional thief if Keiki had not picked her. What's worse was that he had not even noticed that she had slipped into the infantry posing as a common soldier. One would think that they would have at least noticed if they saw someone almost every day. Striding to the door, he hastily dismissed his guards before turning back to her.

"What are you doing here, Youshi-" he started, taking up the alias that she often used when undercover.

She quickly waved his statement away. He hadn't even really needed to ask. She had probably arrived here to take things down from bottom up. She had a tendency of slipping into battlefields and especially into frontlines. The ministers were often horrified to find out about that, but there was little they could do but nag.

"Is Shou-" he began when someone landed heavily from the window beside him.

"I'm getting a little old for all this stealthy work," came the lazy drawl from behind him. Kantai frowned; it felt like the whole troop of troublemakers had just came in and stomped all over his clean floors. If Shouryu was here, then Enki was surely not far off. The three of them liked to get themselves into trouble and it was often difficult extracting them from their 'punishments' without pulling rank that would bring light to their real status.

"It's not like you even age," Yoko shot back teasingly.

Chuckling, Shouryu strode to the map, quickly taking everything in. The pair was divided equally into two halves; the genius administrator, Shouryu and the genius battle planner, Yoko. Although the reason why Yoko was much more effective than Shouryu was solely because she was better at strategies than Shouryu and Shouryu liked to take the easy way out rather than the least casualties way. Shouryu on the other hand was infinitely better at grabbing people hearts than her, his easy-going ways made him more likable compared to stern Yoko who often wore a frown on her face. Though that also made Yoko a better leader in certain ways that Shouryu was not.

"So what do we have here?" Shouryu remarked. "Stalemate for two weeks? Even for Seishin, it's a little long."

Kantai particularly disliked Shouryu calling him Seishin. Everytime Shouryu called him so it felt like he was being made fun of though Shouryu probably was not making fun of him. Seishin was his formal name after all and Shouryu did call almost everyone by their formal names.

"It seems that the people's morale is a little too high. The ' _king_ ' that they adore is someone they believe to be a true king," Yoko explained. "A true king which they believe to have a kirin: a true king for the Void Sea."

Shouryu stared at Yoko with a raised eyebrow. They must have been working separately in order for Shouryu to have not been aware of that. Yoko looked up sheepishly.

"This  _kirin_  they believe to be is none other than a Kaikyaku. Quite like Keisei with origins from a country where blonde hair is the norm. According to Enki, people with natural blonde hair are becoming quite frequent in Hourai. So I believe that situations where Kaikyaku are mistaken for being Kirins will be..." she paused, searching for a word.

"Increasingly frequent," Shouryu said. He had heard something like that from Enki but had not been sure on how to act on that information.

Yoko pointed to the east of the pirates' encampment. "Kantai, I want you to focus on attacking here. I will slip in here," she tapped on the south of the houses. "And retrieve this kaikyaku and Shouryu," she looked at Shouryu. A small smile tugged at her usually stern face, there was a twinkle in her eyes when she continued. "Work your miracles."

Kantai could not help but wish that that look that was almost only directed at Shouryu would one day be directed at him as well. A low bubbling jealously burned in his chest as he watched a silent exchange between his Queen and the En-ou. The two of them did not need words to explain what they had in mind. They just naturally knew what each other needed and worked towards it. Kantai could only aspire to have such a relationship with someone one day. Nevertheless, it never ceased to amaze him how quick her insight was to the true state of things by just observing people. He could feel the surge of pride as he watched her explain it to the Eternal King. This was his Queen.

* * *

"Bring it to the courtyard," Ranjoku commanded. If the note that he received was correct, then they should prepare for the worse.

The trained spies of Koya had gathered upon seeing the blue light. They stood in the courtyard and though they wore passive faces there was restlessness in them. The air was heavy with tension as Shoukei walked in with the glowing blue jade. The glow had grown into something large enough for a grown man to fit.

A soft cry began to fill the air. It sounded like a little girl crying, except it came from the blue glow; the hole; the vortex. What word would best describe it? Shoukei was not sure, but that should not have been her main concern.

What lay over the  _other_  side? What had they done?

Those should have been her concerns.

"Shoukei!" She turned at her name. She could see Sekki waving frantically at her. She could see Ranjoku running towards her, but why? She turned back and the world she came from was gone.

"Sekki?" She cried out.

There was no one to respond, only the sound of her voice echoing, the heat of the ground beneath her shoes and the sound of the girl crying. The land was red and barren, save for the desolated hills and the murky red rivers that streamed through the ground sluggishly. The skies above were dark and empty with a hazy black, stark of the usual sight she was familiar to.

Then there was the sound of rocks clattering on her right. She snapped out of the thoughts, spinning to the right fearfully. That was when she realized that the blue jade on her hand was no longer there. And worse, was the breathing on the right was a dark formless shape. Wasn't it Taiki that once said that toutetsu's call to prey was a young girl crying?

"Lady Shoukei, please step back.," Ranjoku said, placing himself between the black form and her. Around his hand was a black string that trailed and disappeared to somewhere.

Taking a hasty step back, she backed into Rikushun who hurriedly tied a string around her hand and onto his trailing string.

"The gateway to the Twelve Kingdoms cannot be seen."

"Quickly!" Ranjoku commanded. Rikushun swung Shoukei onto his shoulders and began running. All their orders had ended with this, even the one that might have come from Kouya.  _Protect Koya and don't let any out._

"Faster!" Ranjoku bellowed. He was just behind them and trailing behind them was not just a toutetsu. It was a family of toutetsu. Fast and hot on their heels, the trio ran.

* * *

Yoko grabbed Kantai's wrist as the glow approached its climax. She took a step into it, the sound of gravel crunched beneath her. Or was it bones? She looked down, making certain that it was indeed gravel and not bones. It looked all too much like her dream. Despite the fact that she could not stop her shaking, she could not help but laugh. If this was the connection between Hourai and Twelve Kingdoms then the connection between both was none other than Hell. The irony of it all was too much for her to not laugh.

"Your majesty!" Kantai called out urgently, shaking her.

"But it's so funny," she laughed, wiping her tears. "You think the connection between both realms would be heaven or something. But it actually was hell."

"I don't think it is funny, your majesty," Kantai replied with a pressing tone in his voice. They were not in a very good spot to be in. They must landed in a Bafuku's nest, for the Bafuku stood around them, their mouths curling into a snarl as they glowered at them.

"Please go back, Taiho," Kantai said as Keiki stepped through the hole. His shirei had came out, alert and worried they urged Keiki to return.

Keiki shook his head. "I will stay here. I will watch this.. till the end."

"Ready or not, here they come!" Kantai yelled, his sword slewing through the Bafuku. Of all the youma they had to see, their first ones had to be a Bafuku. Almost double their size with incredible speed and strength; it was certainly top on Kantai's list to not want to meet.

_I guess there could be worse ones to meet._  He thought sourly as he slewed another down.

Beside him, he could see Yoko jumping from bafuku to bafuku. Her sword never slowing, the blood curving into a crimson crescent as it spurted out. She danced through their attacks as though they were in a standstill. Was this her with the hinman on? No, he was quite certain she had no hinman on. This must have been the reason why she had feared herself.

Yoko could hear the throbbing in her ears as she swung the sword. It sounded like the ocean, the Unkai that she loved to watch during her sleepless nights. She watched herself detached as her sword flew through the flank of the large bafuku with a skill that she did not know she possessed. Her body tirelessly chased down target after target, leaping onto and spinning away from the their sharp claws and teeth. It was only much later that as she stood there motionlessly, her chest heaving heavily, her body trembling with exhaustion so deep that she could not find the energy to even release the sword in her numbed fingers that she realized that all the killing could not have been done by her. Then she shuffled a few steps forward before her legs gave way.

To have come this far and only be hindered by youma. She cursed her powerlessness, thrusting her sword into the ground, she pushed her body up. Her body protested, her knees refused and as she almost made it standing, she crumpled to the ground, driven by the weight of her own body.

She lay there, just watching the dusky empty sky. The bafuku must have all been put down, for the noisy air was now filled with a thick, tired silence.

_Yoko._

She must have fallen asleep while watching the sky. She must have dreamt of Shouryu calling her, or maybe it had been Kantai. Craning her neck, she spotted Kantai slumped against his sword, asleep. She could not find Keiki and decided that he must have returned through the hole for the smell of blood would have been overwhelming to him. It was all a dream. She rolled over, struggling to pull herself up with her sword that had stood there untouched. Then with a gentle strength, warm hands pulled her up, balancing her as she tottered unsteadily.

"Thank you Kan-," she turned to thank, her voice stopping in her throat.

The man smiled back - a familiar smile. He stood a full head taller than Yoko with all the dignity that she remembered him to have.

"Shouryu."

 


	12. Chapter 12

He looked down upon her, gently placing his hand on her fringe. There were no words needed between them. There was nothing they needed to convey except the longing and the loneliness they felt when apart. She stared hungrily at him, her mind memorizing his every line as Shouryu did to her. He couldn't be real. Her mind rejected the possibility but her heart sang in joy as it urged her to leap into his arms. Reaching out to him, she slowly placed her hands on his face as though afraid that by touching him she would break the spell; her fingertips running down his temples and stopping onto his cheekbones. He was solid, warm. What else did she need to tell her that he was real? The man whose absence drove her into despair now stood before, alive. Her lips quivered as she searched for the words to say to him.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked, not daring to look away in fear he would disappear.

Instead of replying Yoko, he pulled her into his arms. She stiffly placed her head onto his shoulder. She could feel the warmth radiating from his arms as they circled her waist. They had stood in this same position the last day they saw each other. It was no different from then and now. His arms cradled her as though wanting to shield her from the rest of the world. Beneath the gentleness in his eyes, she sensed the strength and the ferocity of his love for her. There were a lot things different then and now. The last time she saw him, he was saying goodbye. He was quite mad then, but for the few short moments they shared, he had managed to pull himself back to say the five words that pulled her through her toughest time. He had said it again through the Seicho he sent shortly before he died however it was not the same as he leaned in, whispering into her ears.

_I will always love you._

It was as though an unspoken rule between them. They never promised each other eternity. The possibility of eternity was too much to speak aloud. So when he spoke of it, it felt like a stab through her heart. She could feel the hot rush to her eyes as she remembered it, the back of her neck burning and the drops of tears lining her eyes as they threaten to spill down her face. Willingly herself not to cry, she pressed her face into his chest. Still this was the man that shared her life for almost 400 hundred years and knew her better than she knew herself sometimes.

They stood there for what seemed ages; uncaring of the world around them. Nothing was more important that the great sense of relief that seemed to engulf them. Shouryu lifted her fringe, chastely kissing her on the forehead. Then pressing something warm and round into her hand, they finally broke apart from their embrace.

She looked down. The warm thing was the Hekisoujo, the gem that she thought she had lost. She must have given it to Shouryu right before he disappeared. At least now her ministers couldn't blame her for losing such an important heirloom.

"So it was-" she looked up to speak, but he was gone. No it was not that he was gone. It had been a dream for she still lay there in the gravel, face up to the ever dark sky. It seemed like a cruel dream for it had lit the fire of hope in her; hope that there was a way for him to return. She got up with a heavy heart, it had been tears of joy that threatened to spill then, now all she felt was a deep despair and tears of desperation. She looked down at her hand, realizing something warm and round was in her hand. The Hekisoujo was there. It was no wonder why she physically felt so much better. The ache in her limbs had faded to nothing and so had the light wounds over her body. It seemed that being in the youma realm had strengthened its properties. She hurried to Kantai and the shirei and began pressing it onto their skin. They would need all the help they could get.

Her clothes felt still warm from Shouryu's body heat. The embrace had felt very real.

* * *

Keiki did not feel good at all. His head pounded and his breakfast threatened to empty itself onto the ground. He knew he should have listened to Kantai, but all this was madness. If his Queen was going to descent into madness, then the least he could do was watch her and be with her. Except that right now, he felt like the blood sickness was going to kill him that the shitsudou.

Shunrin had ordered her shirei to pull him back through the hole where he could recover without the overpowering scent of blood. He leaned onto one of the still-standing fences, gulping the fresh air eagerly. He knew that if he insisted on following them, this blood sickness was going to get a lot worse. Not just a lot worse, he would be a terrible burden to them all. He had stayed in the palace countless times, watching the fading back of his other half. The lonesome feeling of being unable to share the burden was terrible. She carried the weight of her kingdom with her small shoulders, never really truly complaining about the things that really matter. She did of course complain consistently about the weight of the headgear that ceremonies and occasions demanded her to wear, but that was not the case. When the ministers had instigated a small rebellion among the ministers, she had wordlessly taken their betrayal in and passed their punishment with the most impartiality that she could muster. Koukan had insisted with a heavier punishment to deter any minister from thinking of killing the king. Conversely he had, with the compassion of the kirin, insisted that they should be treated as lightly as possible for they might not have really thought of the implications of their acts. She shrugged them off, saying nothing of the grave difference of opinions that her both most trusted aides had given and punished with something that in the end both of them could have reluctantly swallowed.

Yoko had said once to him, "You have to believe me, Keiki. Even if no one does."

He would try his best to believe in her. She had against all exceptions, save for him and a few others, to create a kingdom that once rivaled En. Queen of many firsts.

No matter, he still hated how she had chosen to kill, what may be, hundreds of youma over a thousand and millions of human lives. Why did humans always think lives in numbers? There were times where he wondered if they even realized that the numbers were real people were fathers, mothers and not just a statistic. A hundred lives over a few thousand was still a hundred no matter how good it sounded. Even if it was a choice between youma and humans.

* * *

Leaving Keiki behind, Yoko and Kantai followed by a combination of Keiki's and Shunrin's shirei made their way deeper into the youma lands. Kantai had asked Yoko whether she knew she was going and she had shook her head. Nevertheless, the way she walked and the direction she walked never seemed to differ as though she did know exactly where she was heading.

He wondered if was instinct like the way a kirin knew who was his king. If one asked any kirin how they knew it was their king, they always replied that they just knew but their answers on why were never the same. It always puzzled him and occasionally he mused on whether any kirins had ever made the point of choosing the wrong king. They knew that kirins could not bow to anyone but their king, but what if the person they choose was not really chosen by heaven but the willingness to let that person into their soul? Maybe then when they accepted it, they would be able to bow to that one person. Surely there was kirins who had chose wrong kings, like the current Enki.

His lips curled upwards mirthlessly at the sudden recollection of Yoko's private nickname of the current Enki. She called him Yaguruki when she thought no one was listening. She was naive in thinking that she at any possible point in her private moments would not have someone listening in. Koushou did his best not to eavesdrop, but the joke of that nickname was certainly not lost on him. To have chosen two wrong kings in a row, he was most certainly a Yaguruki. It was even a wonder that the ministers had not killed him in frustration and hope that the next kirin would be able to pick a better king. Probably they feared to have the same results as Hou. Hou had suffered for almost forty years before a ranka had grown on the Shashinboku. The Hourin then had of course picked a splendid king who ruled for almost a hundred and fifty years, but that was not the point.

* * *

Kantai and Yoko travelled fast. She pressed their journey inwards at a hard pace. There were times were they travelled on the shirei and there were times where Yoko insisted on travelling by foot. They were relatively lucky. Shunrin had spared them not just one shirei but three shirei who fanned out frightening most of the youma away. That led to few fights between youma. This also meant that the youma they fought often were fiercer, stronger and occasionally with overwhelming numbers.

Yoko sighed, her hands unconsciously gripping onto Hankyo's fur. She could feel his strong muscles flexing and relaxing underneath her legs as he loped across the dusty landscape. They would have made better time had they flown, but Yoko needed to be as close to the ground. A feeling told her so.

In the distance, she could make out shapes of flying youma. The quickly becoming familiar feeling ran through her. It was unlike the sensation when Joyu would awaken to defend her. Her movements too were far dissimilar to Joyu's. Had she been thinking about it logically, the question of who's skills was she using would have feared her. However Yoko was too far from that now. Her mind had cast out anything that was of an inconvenience.

She leapt off Hankyo's back. Her sword unsheathing her sword as she flew through the air, she effortlessly lopped through the kochou's neck. She swung herself onto the falling dead body; there was no thoughts of right and wrong in her mind now. She jumped from kochou to kochou, her sword slewing through the flesh and bone with the utmost efficiency. Her dance was not the sleek, merciful dance that she had danced many hundreds of years ago against the same beasts. They were movements seemed like she was used to having more strength and tried to compensate its lack with a coarse force. Yoko's body would probably not been able to handle her new found dance had it not been for the strengthened Hekisoujo, but it was this dance that made her feel alive again.

She could feel the blood surging in her veins, the beating of heart in her ears and the call for more with each battle-born breath she took. No, it was not just these. It was the feeling of being closer, of being one with Shouryu. It was the sensation that allowed to her to battle that she had identified of Shouryu. She knew the looks that Kantai and the shirei had given her, but she did not care. There was no one that could understand her. Why would they? To them, the idea of loving someone that you were willing to give up your life sounded implausible. There was no need to marry someone unless they wanted children. Just the act of living together was enough. That was not what Shouryu and her wanted. They wanted to marry, have children together, watch them grow up. Just because they were kings, it meant they had to give up all that was natural. It was not fair.

She stood there on the falling kochou catching her breath. There was a strange thought in her mind, but it seemed right. If she could destroy the Gods, then they would be able to have children. There was a small whisper in her mind that told her there was something wrong in her logic, but she smothered it with the thought that everything else could burn to ashes.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Shoukei looked into the sky. It was hard to tell how much time had passed since they entered the void. There was no sun, no moon, no stars to track their progress. There was no certainty of where they had to go except they had to press on. There was one point of time where Shoukei had been burdened with the throbbing of hunger but that had been only the brief few years where her immortality had been stripped from her. Neither of them had a drink or a crumb of food since they had entered the void. Had they been mortals, they would have been overcome with thirst and hunger. Fortunately or unfortunately, they were sennins. So the only thing they could do was ignore the insistent hunger and thirst and push on.

The trio had been spared from any youma, save for the single large toutetsu. For better or for worse, a single toutetsu had decided to follow them. It was the largest of the family that had followed them. With it, any youma who might have decided to make a quick meal of them were effectively deterred.

Shoukei using the time she had obtained from the long walk had been doing much reflection. The more she thought about it, the less certain she was of Yoko's solution. There were many things that seemed that Yoko and completely decided to write it off. Shoukei was determined not to let Yoko get her way until she had fully explained her plans. She was tired of this charade that Yoko seemed to play.

Regardless, Shoukei had the feeling that none of them knew where they were going. She had led the pace in a relatively instinctive manner and since there was no one else who volunteered an opinion or option; they continued the way the insistent feeling told her to.

* * *

How long had it been since she saw the sun? Yoko was not very certain of her answer. It was not because they had no watch or method to keep track of time. No that was not the problem for Kantai had kept track of the days perfectly or as perfectly as one could. The moments where Yoko felt clear headed had increasingly become fewer. She knew how she appeared to Kantai and the shirei. She remembered how she used to watch Shouryu. His thoughts would fly from topic to topic haphazardly and without any link. Even his reasoning seemed flawed.

Though there was one thing Yoko was certain of. Her time in the youma realm had seemed to accelerate her madness. Was she in her Hourai shell or was she an immortal king now? Yoko couldn't tell. There were times when she felt mortal, where the hunger for water seemed to strip her of her senses and there were times where this thirst was just a gnawing discomfort in the back of her mind. There were even periods where her memory seemed to blank out and she'd come to much later where she was in the middle of a discussion with Kantai or Hankyo or find herself standing in the middle of a battlefield.

This was one such moment.

The dark sky. The endless dusky sky. The never changing black sky.

Those were the things Yoko had come to remember the place by. It was not the dusty red sands or the barren crimson hills. It was the sky.

She stood there staring into the sky, her hand gripping the sword tightly. She could hear her heart hammering in her chest as her lungs gasped for air. Her left hand held firmly onto the Hekisoujo as though it was the floating wood in the stormy sea. What had she been doing before this? Yoko looked down, searching for clues. She wiped the sticky feeling off her face. Her hand came off with a sticky, bright red. It was not just her hand, her arms, her clothes. It was all red. Around her were the corpses of numerous kyuuki. Their wings stripped and scattered across the red sand, their blood darkening the ground.

"Kantai-" she whispered, her voice no longer was the firm and confident empress voice. It was the quavering, hesitant voice of the mortal her before she ascended.

"I'm here, your majesty."

She turned to him. His face looked haunted and tired, streaks of red dust going down his face and all over his clothes. He was filthy as she was, but he was not covered in blood as she was.

"Kantai-" she repeated. Her mind dazed with questions. Was this another dream? Why did things always happen to her? Being a queen was hard enough. No, she can't break down. Not here, not now. She was close. She could feel it. The end was so close that she could taste it in her mouth. Then and only then she could finally lay down to rest.

_Yes, only then._ The insistent voice in the back of her mind agreed

Kantai struggled with himself as he watched the bewildered look on his queen's face. Should he tell her or should he follow the instructions? The shirei had conveniently decided to stay out of it all. Despite how much logic admitted that the fight was now all up to her, he wanted to shoulder as much burden for her as he could.

_Would you destroy a world to save the one you love?_

That question haunted him even in his dreams. There was no answer he could find that would answer it. Was there a right or wrong answer to this? Was there even a right answer? Perhaps what haunted him more was not the question itself, perhaps it was the even look that Kantai received as  _he_  answered his own question.

_Because I would._

Did Yoko know exactly what would happen when she went through this? Kantai felt positive that Yoko had not known the full thing. He was also sure that if Yoko was being logical, she would have preferred to allow herself to die before doing this. Yoko was not this crazy.

Every time she woke up from her trance, she glanced at him. It was as though to reaffirm that he still remembered his promise.

He ran his hands through his messy hair, his hands trembling from the thought of him cutting Yoko down. His minds battled each other: the one that honored the promise and the one who protected the one he loved.

* * *

Yoko could feel the urge stronger now. It was stronger than before. There was no need to stop and rest and Kantai suggested.  _She was here!_  Her heart leapt at the thought. Before she knew it, her body had surged forward. Her steps pounding onto the dusty road, the dust flying up.

_Faster!_

She urged her legs. She felt her body turning lighter as she flew across the barren ground. There was not a thought of what would happen after this. There was no need for Yoko to contemplate of such things. At one point of time she may have had considered the consequences of her actions, but she was too far to reconsider now. She have had not noticed, but as her sanity fell and the urges of heaven called down upon her, there was less of her and more of the one who possessed her.

It might have been his punishment for his actions, but Shouryu would have never judged this as a punishment. He had turned his back on the light to rejoin the cycle of rebirth. To stay, to watch, to aid Yoko; this was enough for him.

Then  _they_  saw her. The glimmer of the blue-hair once princess just above the red rock, it would be hard not to see her for nothing was more striking that blue against the red.

Yoko stopped in front of Shoukei. Though gasping, Yoko did not bother to even try to stop for air before speaking. She wanted it now. When the two jades were together again, everything would be completed. She knew this and Shoukei had guessed it.

She shoved Yoko back with the hand that did not have the blue jade. There was the fire of betrayal in Yoko's eyes, but even the fiercest eyes would not deter Shoukei from getting a straight answer.

"Tell me Yoko," she said in a low voice. She knew everyone could hear the unconcealed threat in her voice, but Shoukei did not care. She might regret it one day when she reflected on it, but for now, it seemed like the best choice. "Tell me what will happen."

Yoko's lips curved into a cruel sneer that was very uncharacteristic of her. She might have been called fierce, stern or even timid and shy at one point or another, but Yoko had never been thought of cruel.

"There's nothing you need to know. Now give me your hand," Yoko spat. Her voice had been stripped from anything that anyone could have associated with her. It is true her voice sounded the same, but now it was cold, hard and spiteful.

She had changed so much that it even alarmed Ranjoku and Rikushun. If they raised their swords to protect their charge, would they be considered as turning against their master? Yoko had always taught them to protect the weak, the innocent and the just, yet the person they called master was turning against that.

"Never," Shoukei said simply. She stared into those green eyes, hoping to see something left of Yoko, but there was nothing left. It was like all there was left was the shell of a person once called Yoko. Shoukei searched for words to beg her, to awake her from her insanity yet there were no words she could find. She cursed her own inaptitude, almost biting her tongue as Ranjoku roughly pushed her aside.

_A person can only live so long, but ideals will always outlast a person._

It had been their master's favourite line and they would uphold her ideals even if it meant going against her.

Yoko unsheathed her sword. Now fully understanding the spirit of the dance that resided in her, she commanded it; callously, fiercely and unsympathetic.

Yoko blocked Ranjoku's first blow, he had always been impatient. Twisting around, she tilted her body forward just a little, feeling the light wind that went past her head. It would have been a magnificent combination had it not been Yoko who had trained them. If they wanted to beat her, then they would have to come up with something new. Ranjoku rolled aside, barely missing Yoko's strikes. She was a lot faster than she was previously. He thurst his weight onto his legs, spinning around as he kicked it up; he felt the firm grip of flesh as he did. She stumbled. She scorned at him or perhaps cursing herself for not avoiding him. Ranjoku was not very sure. Yoko steadied her blade as they began to cross blades once again. The claw sailed past Yoko as she dodged Rikushun yet again.

Their fight was nothing one could have considered a dance for it was choppy, full of thrusts and lunges, nonetheless, in spite of Shoukei's fears for the three of them, she could not help but admire Yoko's new found skill. It seemed like she moved past them with much precision and grace. The two were pushing her back but just barely. Blades and claws crossed each other, missing and flashing as they blocked and dodged. Times when it seemed that death was inevitable to them, Yoko stumbled or lost her grip just enough to push her out of momentum.

Shoukei scanned the surroundings, certain that Kantai would not be far behind. Kantai would certainly put an end to this. He had always been calm and stern even on the battlefield.

Then it seemed like Yoko grew tired of the façade. Closing with a phenomenal speed that no one expected her to possess, she drove her cold blade into his abdomen.

Ranjoku crumbled against her sword that she did not hesitate to pull out. Giving it a quick flick so that the blood and sweat could run off it, she turned to Rikushun without so much as a backward glance. Nothing pleased her more than the feeling of metal against flesh.

Suddenly she heard from the corner of her mind, a small whisper told her it was wrong. Yes, it was wrong. She could feel it in her bones. Every instinctive told her so. Yet her body persisted.

_Shouryu is that you?_

The thought flashed through her mind quickly. It was with great certainty that came from it that it was not Shouryu. Conversely, it had been Shouryu that prevented her from killing the two outright. Had it not been him that had cost her so many chances.

She was losing track of her purpose. Yoko did not need to kill anyone. Her mind fed her body, persuading it for just that moment to return to its purpose. She swung around, catching Shoukei by her hand.

A flash, a scream and a blinding light flooded the world.

 


	14. Chapter 14

The day seemed like it was never going to end. Sekki and the villagers of Koya had been fighting all night and day. It seemed like forever but in actual fact, only a night and day had passed since the three had entered the void. A fight with barely any rest, a fight that decided between life and death, this was not how Sekki wanted to exercise in the first time for a hundred years. Being a Daishikou mean that he spent most of his time judging people based on the evidence he was provided. It was a very stationary job.

Sekki thrust his sword into the ground. He had never been much of a swordsman despite being coached personally by Kantai. He had never been much of a fighter to start with. Gently, he lowered himself to the ground. Blood flowed down his left thigh wound but it was not life-threatening – not many wounds were life threatening to a sage. Hence like many of the other sages that had fought to protect this void, they slumped against something, enjoying the rare moment of respite. The medics pottered around, bandaging the others that needed more.

"It is the smell that drives the youma through the void," a hollowed voice stated.

Sekki spun around in shock. He could barely recognize Kouya. Through the photos Yoko had left behind, he had guessed that he would look fairly similar, but this Kouya was far from it. His hair was dry, limp and chopped off roughly. His clothes were frayed, threadbare and filled with holes. However it was not his outfit or the state of his hair that shocked Sekki, it was his eyes that did. They were hollow, empty, void of anything and as Kouya spoke, it seemed like it was being moved by some invisible puppeteer.

Turning back to the void, Kouya walked slowly towards it. His feet shuffling and occasionally his knees would dip, causing him to sag against the large tamed youma that he called Chiisai-no. He motioned to Chiisai-no who lowered its body so Kouya could lift the corpses of the youma onto itself.

Sekki watched all this with disbelief. It was quite clear this man, Kouya, had expected something like this to have happened for he had not been a least bit surprised at the void or the youma. The sword that lay across his shoulders was dirty with grime from a long and hard journey rather than blood dried from killing youmas. If he took the explanation of travelling hard to reach here, perhaps then it might just fit. Other than the strange feeling, there was nothing else Sekki had to go on with.

"Kouya-" he called out before he could register. "Do you believe what they are doing is right?"

That was all Sekki had wondered. The man paused in mid-step. There was an inscrutable expression on his face as he turned his face ever so slightly.

"There is no right and wrong, only what needs to be done," he replied in that monotonous voice of his and without even blinking, he pulled his sword from its coverings and slewed the Kochou. With that, he entered the void leaving Sekki with much to muse about.

* * *

The kirins were seized with incredible emotion gripping their hearts. They stopped in their motions, gripping their chests. It felt like something was rapidly following through their bodies or was it out, they could not really tell. They had to obey, an order far more important than even their masters. The magic in their horns shuddered, it screamed and hollered. And with a thought to what they were doing, they reverted to their beast forms, soaring through the airs, following the insistent feeling.

All these were so for the kirins that remained in 12 kingdoms. For Shunrin and Keiki, it was different.

* * *

The man that had sat in the car for hours had decided to come and check on the two. He was desperate not to let them go and hurried along the direction that he saw them take. What he saw surprised him even more so than seeing Kantai and Yoko fall from the sky. A girl with fiery hair stood beside a tall blonde man. Both stood far behind the carnage, their sleeves covering half of their faces. Beasts seemed to appear from nowhere. Beasts fought beasts. Their claws tearing through each other's hides, their fangs that seemed the length of his arm sawed through their necks. He could hear the almost audible crack before the beast lay limply between the beast's mouth.

An irrepressible quaver ran through him as he approached them. These beasts were as large as horses. No, they were even larger than horses. It was amazing that none of the authorities had yet to notice them yet, even if you factored out the din that they were making.

Looping around the abandoned houses, he finally made his way to the pair.

"What are they?" he asked, in a low voice.

They whirled around, clearly having not noticing his presence. The blonde man merely frowned before returning to watch on the carnage. The red haired lady eyes widened surprised.

"Naoki?" the words had barely left her mouth before she regretted it.

He frowned at her. The way she had said his name was truly nostalgic and despite being illogical, the only rational explanation for why she knew him would be that she knew Amaya. She looked nothing like Amaya.

Then came the light; the uncontrollable surge of magic and then the shuddering of it.

The two kirins fell, their bodies convulsing. Her nails dug into the ground as she struggled to maintain her human form. The desire to transform and soar towards the call was overwhelming.

"Hisaoki! Take this man away," she commanded her nyokai as the last fragments for her control began to disappear.

"Master!" the blond kirin cried out. In his heart was filled with the dread and fear for his master. He could feel her very soul being in danger and her cries. He leapt. His body turning lighter as he soared, he ran. The wind blowing through his flowing mane, he ran with weightless grace. As fast he could, as fast as his four legs would take him, he ran.

The void was now a blanket of light.

* * *

What have they done? Shoukei had considered the possibility that the only choice to sever the connection between both realms would be to destroy this land. However the more she thought of it, the more she realized the need for realms, heaven and hell. It was in a perfect balance. Each supporting each other, each relying on each other. You cannot sever such an important connection just because the deaths of a million people would be reflected on both sides. It was like destroying the mirror because you hated the you on the other side. Yoko and Shouryu had been going about it wrongly. There must be better ways to fix this balance than to simply  _cut_  its connection. Without this balance, both realms would crumble. This was not a million lives anymore. It was hundreds of millions, billions of people. Everyone was going to die.

* * *

Keiki could feel the pure terror plunging through him as he ran into the light. The magic in his horn surged and shuddered. He could feel it under his skin the wrongness of all this. Would he be struck down by the god? He didn't know and he didn't care. All he wanted to do was to be beside his master. She was a gentle soul, stern with her ministers and always wanting her people to be better people. Kings of themselves, a nation full of kings.

He ran as fast, as far as he could. There was nothing but an endless light. Suddenly, from the light a figure appeared. It was not Yoko. The figure of a horse, its graceful legs, its flowing mane shimmered as it stepped from the light.

Keiki could not recall any kirin that looked that. There was no kirin that was so unbearably beautiful. Its mane had no words to describe its shade except the word iridescent. Its pelt could only be described as a pelt of pure light and its horn was not any kirin's horn. It was not a single horn, but two horns very much like deers. They were long and limber, arching towards the sky. Its large eyes fluttered open. There was a profound darkness in its eyes in perfect equilibrium to its pelt of light.

Involuntarily, Keiki step back when it moved towards him. Its hooves chiming like bells of glass as it tapped across the plains of light.

_Keiki._

Keiki could hear his name form at the back of his head, the way a kirin's voice would register to one in beast form. He could feel the tingle of pure joy shiver down his spine. Why was he reacting this way to anyone but his master? Keiki was confused. It did not make any sense. Where was his master?

* * *

Yoko fell to the ground. Though she tried to repress it, she found it was impossible to stop her trembles. Then it was like the storm clouds cleared, a ray of sun from the endless days of rain. Yoko found the pressure at the back of her head was gone. All that remained was the agonizing guilt that seemed to crush her body.

_What have I done?_

She turned around to check on the people that had so loyally believed in her and followed her only to realize that she was alone.

"Shoukei!? Kantai!?" she cried out. Had she truly killed Ranjoku? That man was practically her son. She had watched him born; take his first steps, taught him to fight. He was smart and keen, always there to give sound advice.

She had killed the boy she had always treated to be her son. The grief was impossible to bear. Tears fell down her face.

_Don't cry my dear Kei Queen._

She looked up in surprise. There had been no one there. Now a solitary figure stood in front of her, yet all she could see was his silhouette for the light was too blinding to make out his features. He moved closer to her, reaching a hand out. He was beautiful beyond belief. Yoko could spend an eternity trying to describe this man, but there were simply no words in any language that was capable of capturing the shadow of his beauty. Neither man nor woman, neither beast nor human, yet he is all of them. A sense of familiarity fell upon her as she allowed herself to be pulled up.

_I apologize._

What did he do to deserve to beg for forgiveness? Yoko's mind could not comprehend the possibility of him doing anything wrong. Rather, Yoko could not do anything but gaze gingerly on his beauty. He sighed audibly, his form shifting. Now the man that was once called Shouryu stood before her.

_Perhaps this form is better?_

The man said, his head tilting in askance.

_It was not my wish to create such a system. They were created to be independent of each other. But things progressed as it did and I was no longer in control of one realm. Without the full control of both realms, I was no longer able to pull them apart._

He spoke plainly. There was grave sadness in his words as he did.

_I hope you forgive me for what you and Shouryu had gone through. In order to separate them, I had to find two halves of a soul bound together so tightly that neither death nor birth will separate them. Both pure and honest. They had to have gone through a thousand of rebirth cycles through both realms. Shouryu was easy as he was born in an era of war, but you-_

A wryly smile tugged at the edges of his lips as he pulled a strand of Yoko's tangled hair free.

_Your soul took a two hundred years loop. And I lost track of you, so I had to mark you to find you._

He tapped the blue jade that her left hand had absorbed.

_I bestowed this on Shouryu. There was nothing I could do to stop the time of death. The system that ran wild would no longer allow my interference save for the necessity. I thank you for struggling so hard for something that I should have done._

He kissed her chastely on the forehead, the same way Shouryu had done so when he left.

_Now, the systems are finally separated._

"Does that mean that no more eggs will be lost in the storms?" Yoko asked.

He nodded his head.

_No more Taikas, Kaikyaku or Sankyaku. No more lost kirins, lost kings. No more lost history, no limiters._

Yoko fell into deep thought as she reflected on this piece of news. Soon the idea of Taika kings would be a relic of the past. She and the Shun King would be relics of the past yet if there were no more limiters would that mean that more kings would live beyond 80s? Yoko sank further into thought, considering its implications on Kei, but before she could go even further, the man tugged her out of her train of thoughts.

_Nakajima Yoko, I bestow on you 1 wish as I had done so for Shouryu. Making note that I cannot bring the death back for that would cause much too many instability, what do you wish for?_

There was nothing Yoko wanted besides what he could not give. So she did not ask.

"There is nothing I want," she replied and her reply seemed to please him.

He tapped the blue jade again. His eyes were shining, as his hair was. His whole body was glowing, fading into the blinding light.

_You will see him again. If you stay true to the way, if you are stern with yourself as you are with your ministers. In a few decades or few hundred years, you'll see him again._

The light was draining out now, the colours of the world returning to the way it should have. Yoko could see the trees above her; the light that fell from the trees was not the same glorious light that she was bathed in just moments ago. She was back in 12 kingdoms. She could feel it in her bones.

And as she took a deep breath of the clear air of Kei, she could hear faintest echo of a brilliant voice.

_I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed that there's Shunrin and Naoki. Because the already complicated plot.. I decided to drop most of it entirely except its barest so it doesn't seem that weird.


	15. Chapter 15

_There is no right and wrong, only what needs to be done._

Yoko sat on the bench eating her lightly spiced bean cake, watching the bustling people as they hustled about their business. When Yoko had sent out her first edict, she had truly wanted her people to be like kings. There was no kingdom in the 12 kingdoms that had more outspoken people than Kei. Some kingdoms called Kei the kingdom of big hearts. They were fearless, willing to fight for injustice should the need arise even if doing so had no benefit for them. The buildings sprawled out with its brightly coloured tiles of every possible colour – of course except turquoise which was reserved for government buildings. They spoke of luxury, of prosperity. The children that ran around, their laughter ringing loudly into the air, they spoke of happiness. The roads paved neatly with stones were smooth and clean as the buildings were large, big and spacious. They had glass windows despite the dear cost of having them. This was not a capital of a province that was close to Gyoten. Soshou was a mere city in Koto prefecture of Bu Province. This was the distinct difference of a kingdom with a long lived king.

She sat there. The sun that bore down on her was gentle as the winters generally were in Kei. Soon it would be winter solstice. Yoko could already see people preparing for it. It was the biggest festival in Kei and also the most looked forward to. Up in the Kinpa Palace, the ministers would be busy with the preparations; fittings to the long heavy dress that she hated but have grown accustomed to, as well selections of jewellery to match her festival dress. Yoko hated it. It was always during this period that she would slip out and vanish for ages. She couldn't be absent for the actual festival and her ministers knew she would reappear long enough for it so she was often left alone long enough during this period.

There were many things Yoko liked to recall during this period. No matter how anyone tried to sugar coat it, there was a heavy guilt in Yoko's heart. Perhaps it was just the kaikyaku way of seeing things, but as the years passed into decades and decades passed into centuries, it seemed that it was here to stay.

The light footsteps stopped beside her expectantly. Yoko knew who it was without bothering to look up. There was only so few people who could find her without any special aid.

"Youshi," Kantai said. He sat down beside her. Garbed in typical mercenary gear, he stood out as much as Yoko with her brown dyed hair, which was not a lot considering no one gave them so much as a glance. Mercenaries were a common sight in Kei now.

It had become customary for her ministers to leave Yoko alone during this period. This was the first time that Kantai had sought her out during this period. Sometimes she wondered if he regretted his decision in following her orders. The death of Ranjoku, the death of countless of people in the same district of Koya, they were all because of her.

Yoko turned to him. "Kantai- I was thinking of going down to En. Clear some air maybe."

Both knew that Kantai knew what exactly she wanted to do. They would have liked to believe that things ended well after they returned, but the truth was that things did not end well at all. There were a lot of changes since that day. In that small period of time, the kingdoms that had been wavering through with a wayward king, a kirin with shitsudo had fallen. Tens of thousands of people died and for the first time in the 12 kingdoms history, there were not one or two but five kirins on the Shashinboku on Mount Hou. Not many common people knew of had happened except that it was unprecedented, the remaining kirins had brought the truth of what had happened to the kings. Yoko had spent many years restoring broken confidence in her. It did not help that most of the younger kings were short-sighted. The Kyou queen, Shushou, had quickly understood what Yoko and Shouryu had been trying to do. It helped Yoko tremendously that she had Shushou's full backing in her decision. However everything Yoko heard someone dying from a youma attack in her kingdom, she could not help but feel apologetic.

"I don't regret it," Kantai said, breaking the long silence that passed through them.

"There might have been a lot of ways to go about it. There many have been many better ways. But in the end I had chosen that option. Was it the best? Maybe not. But there are no best decisions and actions. There are only the ones you chose and did."

Kantai watched the emotions that flickered through Yoko's face. While he had only borne the burden of choosing not to stop his queen, Yoko had a great deal more things to think. She never shared her true thoughts to anyone.

There were no more shokus, no more kaikyaku, no more taikas. No new technology, new ideologies from the other world. More importantly, there were no periods of missing kirins. The kirins no longer could summon a shoku and their meishoku simply transported them somewhere else. There were more youma now in kingdoms with or without kings. For kingdoms that had kings, the youma were much fewer however for those that lacked a king, youma quickly overran the kingdom. Now most kingdoms had hunter guilds that provided not just Youma disposal but eventually also protection for travelling groups against both beast and non-beast, human and non-human. Kantai theorized that because the two lands were now separated from each other, their portion of Youma spilled over into the lands. Hourai must have originally absorbed most of the excess youma, which caused discord in their lands.

Kingdoms still rise and fall, but at least they fell due to the own actions of the kings. There were more cases of kings that had fall off the way and returned back to it. Yoko and Shouryu had given so much to achieve that, but there was no one to thank them; no one except Queen Kyou.

No one would understand Yoko. Being pulled back from the madness and living with the guilt of what she had done so in her madness. There were times where Yoko would lie on her bed, pretending to be asleep. She feared falling asleep. She would see Ranjoku's face, the people who died protecting the void, the faces of the kings who perished, the faces of the kirins and then Keiki's accusing face.

* * *

Sekki finally understood Kouya's last sentence. It was not really about choosing sides. It was about choosing to do something and completing it even if it went against the code. Don't regret, don't hesitate, don't look back.

Kouya had guessed that even with Yoko's and Shouryu's soul, it might not be enough. He walked forward, not looking back; offering himself to Heaven's Will merely because they had come such a long way to give up.

It was with that that Sekki's changes began though it paled in comparison to Shoukei's. Sekki no longer looked towards Yoko with such an idealised view as he used to after he had come to understand Yoko more. It was true that there were few things that were definitely right and definitely wrong. The only difference between them was what to do done and how. Had Yoko and Shouryu conferred with them, they might have been able to suggest a different way, but they had not and there was nothing else but to accept it.

Sekki paused blankly at the list of names he had been filling out as he contemplated that. The list of names that Shoukei had found in Yoko's table was none other than the list of people who had been confided in with strictest confidentiality. Some were spies pretending to be low ranking ministers, some had been servants, but most were from Koya. Reassigning them to deflect any suspicion was now Sekki's job. Officially, Sekki had resigned from his position and handed it over to his subordinate. Sekki spent most of them time in Koya. In a way, he had taken over Ranjoku's job. He read the reports of the spies and passed them over to Yoko if they held any shred of possibility. More than that, he also constantly scrutinized Yoko's actions but if her actions had a valid point and were reasonable, he held his tongue.

Shoukei on the other hand took a different route. It was difficult to tell which caused the fall, but the cracks definitely started after Yoko had returned. Like Sekki, she constantly worried about Yoko and her actions. Spiralling further and further, she found herself unable to trust Yoko anymore. She hated how she could not trust Yoko and then she disappeared shortly after requesting Yoko to remove her from the register. Yoko resisted at first until Shoukei sent her a letter. All it had said was, "Please let me die."

It was almost like Rakushun resignation all over again. Rakushun who was tired of life asked Yoko to allow him to be removed from the register.

She couldn't refuse. It would be too cruel.

* * *

Keiki stared out of the window. It was the exact same spot he would always find Yoko sitting and staring out from. He knew it was unlike him to sit in the dark room of his master but he missed Yoko. It was not like he didn't know where she was, Keiki knew that Yoko just wanted to be left alone.

After he had awoken from the void, he had found himself in Kei. The tall bamboo trees enveloped him. There was small patch of blue sky just high above. It was not the youma or shirei that told Keiki that he was in Kei. It was the smell of the air and the feel of the ground beneath his hoofs that told Keiki. There was a connection to the ground and air that Keiki had never knew existed in his long existence. It felt like they were a part of him. It was as though the void had expanded his senses. He could feel the patter of people on the earth, the flow of the rivers as they wound through the deep dark dirt, the sounds of the birds flying above.

He was the earth, the sky, the water.

Keiki stood there in the grove for the longest time, drinking in sensation. His limbs trembled. It was like he had been caged for all those years and finally he was free. He could not remember exactly how long except that it did not seem very long.

He knew without a doubt that everything would well now. How ironic that in a time where everyone doubts that anything would ever be right again, Keiki the pessimist was sure that it would be all right. The wrongness he felt was not because what they did was wrong. It was just the system rejected the heaven's will. It all sounded complicated to him even as he tried to explain to Sekki, Keiki found that he too had difficulty understanding. The knowledge that Keiki knew was something he just knew. It felt like trying to explain on how to breathe, how does one explain knowledge you intuitively knew? So the more Keiki tried to explain to Sekki, the more muddled he felt.

Shoukei and Kantai reappeared a little while later. Kantai continued on as though nothing had changed. On the contrary of what people might think Kantai was the pillar of Kei. Armed with his strong will and ability to see good in everything, he fostered these seeds in the ones around him and they in turned grew it in others. It became as Keiki said. Everything became right as rain.

Yoko had disappeared for the longest time. During that time, kingdoms fell and rose.

When Yoko finally appeared, she had explained it simply. The system and Heaven's Will were two separate organisms and had become odds at each other. The system had insisted on depending on Hourai as its trash can. Heaven's Will sought a way to separate the systems, so they created Shouryu and Yoko. Or rather they had spilt a single soul into two: Shouryu and Yoko. That was why Shouryu and Yoko had gotten along so well from the start despite the disparity of their personalities. When Yoko had entered the void, her soul and Shouryu's had merged into one, thus completing the perfect soul. It was with their essence that Heaven's Will used it to separate.

With her reappearance, the feeling of being connected to his master was beyond his wildest imagination. They had always been connected since the day he bowed down to her and she accepted it but it had never been this way. He could feel her emotions and even her location. It was not the vague insistent instinct that he was used to. It was a clear sharp knowledge of exactly where.

In the past, Keiki always had unconsciously understood that their relationship was somewhat different from the other kings and kirins. Most of them always seemed to know what the other was thinking. Now it was as though the relationship between Yoko and him had been mended to how it should have been. And with that, Keiki and Yoko became a proper kirin and king, just like how Yoko and Shouryu had matched each other perfectly.

Keiki could feel the burden of guilt and crushing sadness as he sat there watching the garden. The garden was overgrown, broken pillars and scattered tiles littered the withered grass. That was the way Yoko liked. The neat and orderly gardens made her feel fake.

"Taiho-"

The soft, low voice pierced into Keiki's thoughts. Sekki stood at the edge of the room. The preparations for winter solstice were almost complete. Whether she liked it or not, it was time for Yoko to return.

* * *

"Youshi," he started.

"I was thinking," She stopped in mid sentence. Getting up hurriedly, her half eaten cake fell onto the ground. She gaped at the figure that weaved through the crowd.

Brown eyes meeting green eyes. They twinkled mischievously.

"Nao-" She could not wait another longer. She leapt towards him. His arms wrapping around her waist, he caught her. He leaned his head against hers, breathing into her hair.

"I missed you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was difficult finding all the loop holes and covering them. I dare say I could have written better and probably did not find all the loop holes. I tried my best. When writing this, I tried to keep my rules.
> 
> 1) As few OC as possible
> 
> 2) Plausible explanations to anything that happened
> 
> 3) A logical and clear plot
> 
> Unfortunately, this story was originally supposed to be just about Yoko and Kei and what it'd be like after ruling for awhile. This meant that the plot was not very clear nor logical which is why you can see it wavering through the chapters. Even the style is starkly different from the style I usually write. It's even more skeletonly than fleshy. I generally do not continue writing such stories that do not have a clear plot and a beginning and ending, but I decided the very least was to finish this story. So here I am, finally finishing a fanfiction despite the fact that probably almost no one read it. I'm pretty proud of that (not about the almost no one reading part though).
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it. I probably will continue exploring the 12 kingdoms a little while longer. Have some in mind! If you liked this, then try reading the new one that I'm currently writing.


End file.
